10 YEARS OF NOBODY THE BLOG

I started this blog 10 years ago to write down my frustrations, to express my emotions, to create an explosion of passion and an outlet for my creation and imagination. My first story written on here was one about someone I loved and our experience together not sleeping and just spending nights doing whatever we could to have fun without any curfew in pure freedom. But as any love when young, it ended, and I grew more and more introspective. With the lack of direction in life, with the abuse of all freedoms and the fun that it came with, my spiral was a sight to behold as life turned into a roller coaster. And my writing on this blog reflected it. But those times too have to come to an end, and they did, when I hit a wall and I had remained with myself and a two year depression after a failed attempt at running a coffee bar.

During this time of depression, I delve deep into anything I could to keep my mind busy. Yet I was in denial, as I was searching for answers. And so I also delve back into writing, but this time on a daily basis on this blog, as I couldn’t find any of the answers I needed or wanted from any reading, deciding to find them on my own. This also spurred my desperate need to find an answer to what I want to be in life, as nothing had satisfied me to that point in time. This grew my passion for writing as I began experimenting by trying different types of stories, subjects and styles. Some garnered views, likes, shares and had eyes on them, others not so much. As time passed, the depression went from seasonal to a two year stint where I had hit my head on the proverbial wall as many times as I could, until I had realized something…

At that point I have been writing short stories, lyrics and poetry for over three years and daily for over two years out of the three. During this period I also tried the first of the short story series called A Misery’s Romance, about a bunch of high school boys and their take on love. Also during this time there were a few segments on the blog, the one that you can also sometimes find on this iteration of NTB is The Rant. The others were about news and virtues. And as I found out that I wanted to become a writer and write more than just short stories, I also wrote a short story series on here, this one named Trapped in Autumn, which as you guessed I turned into my debut book Trapped: Autumn. Another series I wrote during that time was 20 Questions, which you can still read the first chapter of it in The Pilot Program 2019. All this while I started going to college and pursuing becoming an author. As I wanted to find guidance, learn and become a better writer. Yet, sadly, all I found was frustration, closed doors and a lack of enthusiasm and nepotism. And all that can be found in all four Trapped: Seasons books. The more I wrote, the better I got. And the better I got, the more I experimented. And the more people visited and read what I had written. The better I wanted to get and the higher the standers and things I wanted to produce and give to the world.

And with that said, I’ve learned a lot and I thank you for reading my stories, for liking, commenting, sharing them. So let me tell you what is to come from me, a nobody, this year: The Pilot Program Continues, I Write Sins… Not Tragedies is getting sinnier. I am going to release two books this year, one this late spring, one in winter. But, writing this fifth book has been a challenge. As I said, the better I become, the higher the standards I have, which is a bit of a hurdle to overcome when you want to put out quality content. But, it is going to come. The cover is almost ready and the first 14 chapters are done. So we’re over 25% done with writing it. And for the next 10 years, I want to continue to provide amazing free short stories for you to read, to continue to publish interesting books of changing genres and to always try to bring something new to storytelling. And of course, to have you along with me on that journey.

Consider donating: https://www.paypal.me/RaulFO

Trapped: Summer Official Release

Welcome everyone, nice to have you here today. No, this isn’t a livestream, nor is it a video or a live presentation, it’s just a post this time. I’ve been busy, writing, content creating, learning, exciting stuff. We’re finally officially here, Trapped: Summer launch day, I am so happy to be finally done with this book, with this series, and especially with Summer. This book drove me into a severe depression that was followed by panic attacks and anxiety. Things that I have yet to fully recover from.

Thinking about this book, I would really just want to cry and cry and cry. Because it is finally done and it feels like a curse has been lifted. Though, I still feel trapped, somehow the chains feel less heavy now than when I first started writing this series. And what a journey it has been, I’ve learned a lot and improved as a writer and this can be seen through the second editions of Autumn and Spring and then through Winter and now Summer. I am proud of what I achieved here, and I am happy that I got to write this series, it really meant a lot to me.

When I first started writing this forth book, I thought that writing the story I always wanted to write in some sense, would be fitting, especially to end it on another personal note, since it started with an autobiographical story of mine, felt fitting to end it on a similar note. Yet here is the thing that got tricky… When you go into a larger period of your personal life, especially when it deals with traumatic events. Sometimes you don’t recognize the amount of regrets or mistakes you made, until you do something like this and dive deep into what you remember.

So when I started writing Trapped: Summer all these things came back up, I thought it would be cathartic, going through such an experience. Yet I realized that I wanted to tell some people things I didn’t have the guts to tell them the first time, at the right time. The more I thought about this and the more I wrote the book, the deeper I had to dig, and the deeper I had to dig, the more questions I had about my own self and my decisions and thought processes. The realization of certain things, broke me.

When I came up with the ideas for Winter and Summer, the process was more complicated and I explained it when I launched Winter. But this whole idea of walking into your own past, is terrifying now to me, and I really can’t wait for you all to read this book, to see, to ask and to feel what I felt in some capacity writing Trapped: Summer. That’s all I can really say about the story of how Trapped: Summer was written, how it became and what it meant to me.

Hope you all enjoy it,

Raul F. O.

You can buy Trapped: Summer here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SRT48XL

New Book Announcement

Summer, what a beauty of a season. Short warm nights, with lovely winds that feel like an embrace. Light that feels you with joy and heat that smothers you with its hotness. And this is the last of them, the last season in the Trapped: Seasons saga. The forth book in three years, another one, but this is bigger, and just so much more. You have no idea how much joy is in my heart announcing this book and finally putting it out there in the world for everyone. This series has been a certain something to me. While these are my first steps into literature, they’re also something very special, something very traumatic. And I think that’s why there’s a certain happiness with the release of Trapped: Summer, honestly.

Trapped: Summer picks up not much later after Trapped: Winter ends, with Richard and Al still loitering around, chasing a mad dream of revenge whilst running away from something. And somewhere else, Vile, a 29 year old man, struggling with his current relationship and career, finds himself walking 11 years into his own past. That’s the synopsis in a few sentences. This last chapter too, is autobiographical fiction, being based on some of what I remember to be the most crucial parts in my past relationships. Or perhaps the most traumatic ones, what stuck with me through the years.

Trapped: Summer is the longest book and project I have ever worked on. Through a grueling process that took over a year, it is definitely the biggest of all four books. The sheer immense amount of work that went into this, from re-writings to restructuring and reworking the book in such a way that it brings an epic finale to this wonderful series, it’s all been absolutely a terrifying work. But I am proud to present to you Trapped: Summer, the end of an epic four years of learning, and hard work.

You can pre-order the book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SRT48XL

Thank you and see you soon.

Trapped: Winter - An excerpt about things

Maybe a disruption helps from time to time from the average days of the mundane, the ordinary and the plain.

It might get your brain rattled, shaken for something interesting to find or think.

Or just simply distracted from all one wants to avoid… Isn’t that right?

Of course it is, nothing works better than distractions. Or changes for the sake of just changing anything, so one can be busy, have an excuse to procrastinate on the things that really matter. Well, that’s if you choose to make them matter.

Otherwise it’s pointless. Isn’t it? To choose anything or have any sort of say or need for freedom of choice… When you don’t want to choose or do anything, really.

But then again, so is trying to find your purpose in life and starting to do something with what you have been gifted.

There are simpler ways to deal with that… Just chuck the responsibility on some entity and say it’s in their will. Whether it’s Karma or whatever god you can come up with… And you’re have no more responsibility to be or do anything, because you know you already have your place reserved and you’ll be forgiven once you pass onto the next life, whatever for it may be, if there is one.

So, if it’s in his will, why should one have the choice to choose what they do with their life? If it’s in his will… Your life doesn’t belong to you, does it? It’s either his or yours, it can’t be both.

Not that it really matters, because when it comes down to it all, there’s nothing really that matters, if you don’t want it to matter. Is there?

No, not by default, only by designation…

Just like choosing who we are with.

Choosing is used loosely in this context, isn’t it?

To choose means you knew all options and chose the best one for you. Yet if you do not know yourself, if you do not know what you want… If you don’t have all options… What exactly are you choosing?

Whatever is left… And you’re happy with that, aren’t you? You’re happy with what you’re getting and nothing else. Isn’t that right?

That’s not choosing, is it? When you’re forced by circumstance to choose between bad and bad-ish, between okay and okay-ish. To have to choose something that is not up to your standards…

Or…

Or worse… Choose something that doesn’t even satisfy you after a while. Something that is becoming a nagging thing you can’t escape from, but you’re not willing to risk it, because it’s better with the lesser evil than alone, or worse… With someone that is worst that she is…

Things, they’re all things that are here and there and everywhere…

So you settle… You aren’t willing to go for better, because you might never get the better, since the better already found the better of you in someone else. So, now you sulk at the thought… A regret for no reason, as it didn’t happen, yet, you’re not willing to risk it. To get out of this box of misery you live in. But nor can you tell all this to the person you are, because you just might hurt their feelings. You might just insult them unwillingly, about a truth we all know, yet don’t we don’t speak of. When we have the tools to find those that we want or need, we shut our mouths and close ourselves off, because trying to find those we want or need, might end up in disappointment. So we settle, for worse, never for better, always for worse.

Always for worse than you can do, I can do, anyone can do. Because there’s nothing else that matters, as long as you don’t die alone, suffering and crying.

Right? Wasting away, what a self-inflicted tragedy that no one will mourn. Because no one should mourn someone like that, a monster that love its own misery to the extent you do. And then you wonder why no one wants you, when you can’t even love the thing you are.

Things, that’s all we are, things that pass. Everything is a thing of a thing of a thing. And no one can change that, no one… Because you’re either no one thing or some thing that does a thing that has its thing of a purpose that helps things.

And everyone loves a good thing, don’t they?

So I heard.

Consider donating: https://www.paypal.me/RaulFO

New Book Announcement

I think, at some point we all asked ourselves: “What if?” Just that, just those two small tiny words. Which were the inspiration for this third chapter too… A classic question everyone had to think about at some point, just like we all wished we had started working on something earlier, or if we’d been more driven to succeed at a younger age. Or simply dealing with the anxiousness that is life. That is the base level of the story of Trapped: Winter, the third chapter of the Trapped: Seasons series, complete with a new setting, created by your mind. New characters in a new world that feels old. Because what is dead may never bleed, what is dead may never bleed, what is dead may never bleed.

Trapped: Winter is the something else of my works. With each chapter written in this series, the more I got to discover myself and create something rather unique. The story of an old man, Richard, running away from something strange, something dangerous which he can’t control. And Mark, this adult chasing something, anything for the sake of it. We have here an interesting parallel between someone that is being chased and someone that is chasing. The apparent disconnection between the two situations makes us draw lines, just so we can compare them to one another. But still, to any story I write there’s something more, due to the need to try and portray a better, more concise look, having a batter grasp on the story, the characters. We also have the weird, the mysterious, the out of place yet it makes sense. After writing this series for two years, with the progression of time, it changed. And this can be seen through the characters and their dialogue. As with the previous two Trapped: Seasons books, this one has a similar style. A Shakespearean style play, put as a novel and filtered through today’s eye in order to try and create something more. Keep an eye on the blog for more news, cover reveal, a full synopsis and more details about the book launch.

The book Trapped: Winter will have its launch on Saturday January the 12th and will be available for pre-order as an ebook soon.