Owners of the Chi

This is it. My very first blog post... Okay, I lie; this really isn't my first, but in all things Orisha, let us just pretend it is. Now, if you please, step inside the maniacal mind of the author, and allow yourself to gradually spiral into the mess of a world you would have never before thought could exist: the world of the Orisha.

Think of it this way: you are stuck in a dark place. You cannot feel cold physically because you don't have a body, but you feel a certain chill. A sense of loneliness. A nagging need to belong somewhere, a need for a light to emerge and make you feel... something. At the back of your mind, you know that you are just that. A single thought, drifting alone in a space that should not exist. And then, out of the darkness, a blinding, golden light emerges, and finally you don't feel so alone anymore. You feel a touch of warmth because from this light, you find peace. You find purpose. You find something that will give you a sense of belonging, no matter how insignificant. Therefore with as much strength and courage as you can, you latch onto it and vow to never let go.

This, you realize, is what it feels like to have an undying dream.

The epiphany hits you like a godly force as you munch on a cookie, watch your child play in a graveyard, or simply while you were taking a dump; it always happens at the oddest of times. An unquenchable thirst for actualization rises and the cogs in your mind turn faster than they ever had. The webbing around them disappears, and as you run around muttering to yourself like a possessed man, your heart jumps for joy, having finally found meaning to your life.

Ok, maybe this is not how it happens to everyone else, but it is how it happened to me. This is how my dream came to me.

Massive towers of books surrounded me. The darkness had disappeared and I was suddenly in a library whose shelves reached the skies. No, seriously, there were clouds wafting by, and I believe in the distance a skyscraper made of books shielded the sun. Oh joy! I was in nerd heaven, surrounded by one of the few things that gave me true ecstasy: the opportunity to escape into multiple words. I leaped for joy, did a little nerdy pirouette, took a book and sniffed it like a pervert to panties. What more could I have asked for? But even with this, even with my ultimate desire handed to me, I felt lost and empty. Something was missing, I told myself, and no, it was not a bride that I desired. It was something more, something only I could create, and that was when I realized: 'I must write!'

I woke up the next day and began drafting what I consider the greatest story I will ever tell. That was back in the year of our Lord, 2013, and a horrible draft it was. But that is a story for another day.

Four years down the road, the first book is completed. Unpublished, yes, but now in the hands of who I consider powerful editors (because they are the only editors I know). The plan to write one book transformed into three books, and then into seven, and then into twelve, because the more my mental cogwheels turned, the faster the webs disappeared, the more the story spun and the broader it became, so much broader that it frightens me. I have been - and still am - taunted by numerous doubts. What if I lose motivation? What if my writing worsens? What if no publisher accepts my manuscripts? What if my readers hate every word? What if its sensitive material puts it at risk of getting banned? What if... what if I die before the story is completed? The fear is real, my friends, but one person told me something that I still hold close to my heart: I should write for myself because I am and will always be the first reader.

I know this is a kinda whack first blog post. Still, to paraphrase the words of one wise Tumblr post, "fasten your seat belts, Motherf*****rs... because in short weekly blog posts, I am going to learn you a thing about the pains of writing I only learned myself in over four years, so sit down, shut up, and enjoy the experience of my raging fudge-cake-and-anime-induced-insanity-fueled writing extravaganza."

Stay tuned for an interview with one of our starring characters.