Welcome back. Thanks for coming by for this first in another week of posts.
So, I realized . . . I do a lot of series. In fact, since I started posting every week day . . . I think every single post has been part of a series.
It’s getting a little exhausting.
So I thought I’d kick it old school and just talk about something random.
And, since it was showering earlier today, I thought that random thing would be . . . rain.
Because it’s a really intense trigger for me.
To be clear, I don’t mean that rain is my muse; I don’t get ideas from walking out in the rain. Inspiration doesn’t come to me from the unique roar of a storm.
No, rain just–very regularly–motivates me. And we’re talkin’ stop-what-you’re-doing-and-go-write motivation. Literally; a bunch of times during my life, I’ve stopped the moment a first drop hit my window sill. I’ve blinked, gotten up, walked to the window–or, other times, I’ve just sat and stared.
Either way, the clean scent of billowing atmosphere would roll in through the window.
And I’d breathe it in. Let it out with a sigh.
Then turn off whatever game or movie I’m distracting myself with, and immediately get back to my manuscripts.
I almost want to suggest a totally fun name for it–something like Writer’s Guilt–but a name like that wouldn’t be 100% correct.
Because, when it starts raining, I’m not hearing a voice pressuring me. I’m not remembering something someone told me or some promise I made.
I’m remembering . . . the feeling of watching Jurassic Park for the first time.
I know–that’s weird. But it’s true. Jurassic Park came out when I was 11 and I saw it in theaters. Naturally, the part that had the biggest impact on me was the scene at the T-Rex enclosure.
If you haven’t scene Jurassic Park, I’ll just explain that, at one point, the majority of the cast is stranded at the T-Rex paddock when the park’s power grid is turned off. The loss of power means that their automatic vehicles stop moving.
Right beside the T-Rex paddock’s electrified fence . . . which has also lost power.
When the T-Rex arrives, it turns into a scene with a ton of suspense.
In part because there’s no music.
Just the constant sound of rainfall.
At that point, I’d already played Final Fantasy III on my Super Nintendo. I’d already realized that stories were really awesome because they had the power to make you feel things–experience stuff that was cool . . . and important.
But Jurassic Park was the moment when I first thought, “I want to make something like this.”
And that something was, of course, a ridiculous short story about my cats becoming giant-sized and chasing me and my cousins around our apartment (I was so 11).
But, decades later, with significantly less cat-heavy stories under my belt, the sound of rainfall is enough to remind me of why I write in the first place. The feeling that I want to give to other people.
The feeling of being 11 years old and in complete, wordless awe.
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Thanks for reading. This week is going to be a little crazy for me with the promotion, but I’m still going to try to get these posts on a better schedule (getting them out during the day instead of around midnight). I’ve been prioritizing other things over writing on here, which means sometimes, I’m get started on these posts really, really late. The result: I’ve been fighting sleep to finish some of these. We’re talkin’ writing a sentence, passing out, jumping up a minute later, determinedly writing another sentence, passing out again . . . It’s obviously not good for quality, so I’m going to try to figure something out.
But, anyway, my name is Louis Santiago, and I’m a fantasy writer based in the Bronx. My short story, “Aixa the Hexcaster,” was recently published in Mirror Dance Fantasy. However, I’m still very much learning about the writing process–still trying to figure it out. Part of that means posting on here every weekday, even though I make absolutely no money from it. So, if you like what you read here and feel up to getting an email every weekday–a new post from me delivered right to your inbox–then please hit the Follow button at the bottom of this page. Because, even though all I get from this site is emotional support, that support means the world to me.
Either way, thank you just for dropping by. And, as always, write well.
House of Error 
I think you found the winning formula for blogging. Write about anything random, because it doesn’t matter – as Kurt Vonnegut said, you end up writing about yourself anyway. Rain has a powerful affect on me too. When I was young I had a difficult time settling into secondary school and was given the option of going on a summer camp. The problem was, I absolutely dreaded the prospect, constantly thought about the bus pulling away on a bright summer day and the sinking feeling in my stomach that would result. For some reason, imagining leaving when the rain was pelting down seemed so much more acceptable and soothing, even though the camping would, in all likelihood, be a miserable experience for most people.
Another thing; I have one of those ‘get to sleep’ apps that play white noise or whales calling, or anything else that the user can throw together. Most of my favourites involve the sound of falling rain e.g. wolves in the rain rainy night train, melting snow on a winters afternoon or dripping water in cavern. I guess I’ve tuned into something zen-like here.
Finally, I bought a garden ornament for my wife on Mothering Sunday. It’s yet to be tested out because the weather has been fine here (a first for this neck of the woods), but it consists of five or six stalks with a metal cup at the top. Left out in the rain, the cups fill with water and weigh the stalk down until the water is released from the cups. They then spring back upwards and make a ringing sound as they meet at the top – presumably like a wind chime. I don’t know why the idea of this thing grabs me, but I think that there’s a story or at least a metaphor in there.
Thanks for these daily posts. Stephen King has his constant readers. You have become by constant writer!
Yeah, writing about anything definitely seems like a winning formula when you put it that way!
Also, thank you for this comment, sir. I love your take on the horror of going to camp, offset by the thought of going on a rainy day. There’s something perfect about that–a collection of negatives adding up to a beautiful positive. Rainfall can make even the worst situations more bearable, with the right configuration.
Also, thanks for the massive compliment. I barely know how to even process hearing that I’m someone’s constant writer, so just wow and thank you!