This weekend I didn't feel like writing so I drew another picture of Jordan from Oculus. I have no idea what kind of background to use, and I absolutely suck at backgrounds so it may stay this way for a while. If you look at my other art, it's usually a wall or some trees (because trees are easy). I just didn't want to draw trees. I really need to try and expand my absolute hatred of all things scenery. It's just...I HATE DRAWING SCENERY. It's soooo boring. But I know I know...it anchors the picture.
I sooo need a partnership with someone like Rusty Webb who can whip up the most amazing landscapes and backgrounds.
Anyway, this picture came of me desiring two things. I wanted to put slight freckles on Jordan's skin. I thought they turned out great. I also wanted to satisfy my leather jacket fetish. I loved doing the leather jacket! It was so much fun. And note, I even colored his teeth and put texture on the cuff of his right arm from the dress shirt he's wearing under the jacket.
I don't know why I can spend hours drawing a guy and all of his clothes, but I absolutely dread the background. It's another reason why I'll never be a real artist.
If you think of a background that might be cool to try, you should let me know. I just...don't want to do trees. He should be indoors, because he's barefoot.
This drawing was done using coloring pencil on illustration board. You may pin it, or use it if you like. Just give me credit.
Oculus also got reviewed. You can read it for yourself HERE.
Because it was so snowy outside my window this weekend here in Utah, I decided to finish a pencil drawing I started a month or so ago of Andy Callahan who makes his appearance in "Oculus." So this is what I think he looks like. In the last third of the book, there's a part where Jordan spends Thanksgiving with Andy at his parent's home in the Hamptons, which is surrounded by woods. It snows and interesting things happen. And yes, I really like writing about the children of the 1% (because let's face it peeps...the 1% live a lifestyle I will never know).
Thanks for all the support regarding the "Oculus" cover reveal. For those of you who indicated interest in being part of my blog tour, I sent all your contact information to my publicist, Roxanne Rhoades, who is helping me set it up. I just got overwhelmed with individual emails, the book getting plopped in my lap, and planning my business trip to the Consumer Electronics Show on January 5th.
Between that and trying to figure out what to do, I just realized I could use some assistance. Roxanne previously helped Ciara Knight which made me think, if Ciara got help from this lady that's good enough for me. Plus she was uber affordable. I was like, "OMG, I spend that kind of money on one meal out with friends. So totally worth it."
So if you get an email from Roxanne about scheduling, please don't toss it. She's just helping me. Things are super busy at work too. And look at it this way, with her helping me, my visiting to your blogs shouldn't diminish because I'll have time to do so now. :)
So this is my cover. It's full of creepy crawlies. And seeing that you've probably already viewed it by now on my sidebar or through the tab above, I wanted to offer a little explanation of what's going on here. The cover does fit the book. Even if you may be scratching your head and thinking...can Mike really write about spiders
this much? Yes, yes I can. So here's the scene that this cover actually reflects (although it is a symbolic cover and not an actual scene as taken from the book):
*****
(Kolin and Kathy in front of a computer terminal,
and Kolin tells Kathy to start a video they both can watch)
Kathy did as instructed. A video started up, showing an individual
approaching the front of the building.
He wore a long cloak, but his face was unmistakable. Charon possessed skin as transparent as
glass. He had silver eyes and deep red
hair that flowed down from his scalp and swept over his shoulders to fall in
the darkness behind his hood. As he
walked forward, he parted his cloak, and Kolin saw the redness of Charon’s
heart, beating under all that transparent skin, supplying blood to the
demigod’s limbs so that he may live.
From inside the flap of his coat,
millions of glass spiders emerged and washed across the black asphalt like a glittering
flash flood. Charon directed them like
Poseidon must command the waves of the ocean.
They blazed with their own silver light and swarmed over cars, benches,
and lampposts, scurrying toward the front of the building. Guards at the doors pulled out pistols and shot
off a few rounds but were quickly overwhelmed by the spiders. These tiny arachnids with gears visible on
the inside of their glass skin spun silver thread about the struggling humans,
encasing them, and then proceeded to drill into their heads, lacing their
brains with microfilament fiber optic wire.
The video had no sound so Kolin couldn’t
hear the screaming. But he could see the
men and women shrieking. He watched. His skin got clammy under his armor; his
mouth dried of spit. Despite the fact
that the wounds inflicted by the spiders were small, blood flowed over the
floor as thick and sticky as syrup.
The spiders continued their march and
entered the building, cocooning anyone they came across. The millions of tiny creatures were
unstoppable, like a deadly tide, and they crawled over everything, leaving
threads of blinking light that flowed into Charon’s body. People fell in the lobby and became
enshrouded in webs. They collapsed in
doorways or in the chairs in which they sat.
Meanwhile, Charon just continued to cackle and smile with glee.
*****
So what's going on with the cover. Well, the color red is very important to the book. The team that Jordan plays on is called "The Big Red" and its colors are red and white. Jordan plays ice hockey so the spiders are walking on what could be construed as glass or ice. Blood on the ice is an important theme in this book, hence the blood droplets underneath the spiders. So in a way, the cover is perfect for the story and they definitely look like a part of the same series. I wasn't sure if I quite liked it, but it's growing on me. What do you think?
The book did go on sale today. Go HEREfor purchasing options.
A FAVOR ==> If you are looking for an idea for a post (I'm not asking for any special treatment), could you just mention the cover in a snippet either today or tomorrow?
The Cosmic Laire of Science Fiction and Fantasy (for the record, I never noticed that "laire" could be spelled that way) tagged me with a meme. It's called "Be Inspired" and has this plain "Google-esque" (that's a word, right?) badge here. The rules are simple. Answer the questions in the meme and pass them on to five other authors. Also give thanks to the person who awarded you with the meme as well as linking back to them. Thanks David and GO VISIT HIS BLOG HERE!
What is the name of your book?Oculus.
Where did the idea for your book come from? It's a sequel to my first book, Slipstream. It came from the characters doing stuff.
In what genre would you classify your book? Speculative Fiction/Dark Fantasy
Who would you pick to play your characters in a movie adaptation? No idea at this point. Someone young, hot, and blond with like 5% body fat and sparkling blue eyes.
Give us a one sentence synopsis of your book? A boy with NHL dreams must kill demons slaughtering hundreds of cops in the streets of New York City following the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
Is your book already published? Nope. I'm finishing up with my edits soon. I had the best editor I've ever worked with help me with my manuscript. She really was frickin' awesome.
How long did it take you to write this book? I started it in May 2010. So that's 2.5 years. Geez, I'm slow. In my defense, Oculus is an incredibly intricate and complex book. I think readers who liked Slipstream will see that this book definitely raises the bar. Plus I feel that my climax is really awesome, and all my beta readers seem to be blown away by it too. That makes me feel confident, because I think endings are difficult to write.
What other books in your genre would you compare it to? I have no idea. I'm not trying to be obtuse, because I'm well read. But I honestly have no idea. One beta-reader said it had a Harry Potter-esque feel to it because of the Cornell University setting and the sport element. But it's an adult book, darker than Slipstream, with graphic sex, extreme violence, murder, gore, and terrifying demons. I'm going to say, it would be a cross between Harry Potter and Hellraiser, if you can even imagine that.
Which authors inspired you to write this book? Oh, all that I've read. Seriously, every book I finish is an inspiration to pen my own story.
Tell us anything that might pique our interest in your book. I did a ton of research to make the places in New York featured in Oculus leap off the page. The book loops continuously on itself, referring back to earlier events, which is some of the things that I really enjoy about great books I've read. There are many, "Oh that was mentioned two chapters earlier and now it's important" moments. It's been cut and rewritten to the point that every character is necessary (and I have a lot of characters). Each one has a role to play. Each person pulls their own weight. It's gone through beta reads and two professional level edits even before sending it to the publisher. There are no unnecessary characters and events at this point. Jordan and Kathy's powers grow in unexpected and strange ways that I think will have people marveling at my unique "magic" system. I honestly think it's pretty clever, but I wrote it.
Bonus Person: Elise Fallson 'cause I must know what she's writing and you should too.
Second Bonus Person: Matthew MacNish because I beta-read Warrior Monks, and I want him to talk about it.
Since I'm talking about my writing projects in this post, I wanted to thank all the supportive people who have purchased my book. I got my royalty statement from Double Dragon Publishing for sales thru June 30th, and it was much bigger than I ever expected (DDP by the way is really professional in case you are looking for a publisher). Then following that, I got a couple of amazing emails from readers who aren't bloggers (like actual readers who aren't authors and that's all that they want to be) who raved about my book to me. That just felt good. It made all the work that I put in seem worthwhile. I guess what I'm saying is that fan mail is really frickin' awesome. Plus, I had a person request a review copy of my book. That has never happened. I've always had to pester people "Can you review my book, pretty please with sugar on top?" This person just found me and asked for it. Maybe that's how real authors feel? I dunno. But maybe they don't have to go begging at doors asking people to post reviews of their book. Anyway, it just made me feel good for a brief moment in my day, and I hope that you get that feeling all the time with your own publishing endeavors. Have a great Thursday. I will be featuring author J.L. Campbell as part of the Distraction Tour on Friday. I will resume blogging on Tuesday (I'm taking Labor Day off, as should you).
SPOILERS: I'm chatting about my book. You have been warned.
At left is a drawing I worked on and never finished. Hence the "missing background". He's cartoony. I drew it probably ten years ago, I think (maybe longer than that). I honestly can't remember. Don't be cruel people!
Anyway, consider this my "concept art". I have other concept art sketches...some in color...some in black and white...that I've done over the years to help me visualize my characters.
This is what Kolin could look like (it's difficult to find the right picture in my mind). He's the guy that Jordan (my protagonist in SLIPSTREAM) falls in love with (yes there are gay people in my book...run away now). They do gay things together too...not just picking out window treatments.
Kolin kills people for money. He's really good at it too because he's had lots of practice. The suit he's wearing is called a killsuit. It's one of the gadgets that my friend Donna Hole alluded to that I use in my book when she reviewed it. So what is a killsuit? Well it's something that you wear when you intend to kill people. Kolin's a professional assassin. He uses guns, swords, knives...he's really good at murdering folks.
It's a very special piece of equipment that has many properties mostly associated with the metal it's made from.
It's tailor-made so that it fits like a glove. Rather than a boot, the individual toes are separated so that the person walking can get a sense of the unevenness of the ground. All the information is relayed up to the helmet which isn't pictured in the drawing. I imagine it looking kind of similar to the way a mantis-head looks, with a visor of glass. All the suits controls are chosen via a tongue pad in the helmet. You stick your tongue out and select buttons that sit right in front of your mouth.
It's made of corobidian. This is a fictional Avalonian metal. It's a superconductor so you have to wear grounding arm and leg bands. Otherwise just moving around generates electricity. You run around and lightning coils around your body. Corobidian is really light...light as a feather...but stronger than any known metal. It takes tremendous heat and power to forge so suits are incredibly expensive. If it gets superheated, it can give off a fume which is a deadly poison.
The arms are supposed to contain weapons. On one side is an energy net. On the other is a blade that can be ejected from a casing. All weapons are made of cibrian metal. This is another fictional Avalonian creation. Unlike corobidian, cibrian is extremely hard. It's heavy, so unsuitable for armor. But any wound it creates will never heal. Ever. If you get cut by a cibrian blade, you will bleed to death. It's just that simple. There are no exceptions. I don't even use magic or anything like that to get around this rule. Cibrian inflicts permanent damage. Period. End of story. Also a sword made from cibrian is likely to never break. I can't foresee a future where I will go around this rule. And thus far, I haven't explored using cibrian bullets yet. And cibrian cuts through all other metals EXCEPT another cibrian blade.
Anyway, I use these suits extensively in the first book, SLIPSTREAM. Each suit has a color that is matched to the person and it alternates with the color black.
I like writing about sports in fiction. J.K. Rowling did it with quiddich (or however it's spelled). I didn't want to make up a sport because that sounds too hard. So I chose one that I watch and understand. Ice hockey has a role to play in my first two books, and I'd like to explain why.
In SLIPSTREAM, the first book in my series A Crisis of Two Worlds, the entire plot hinges on Jordan getting an invite to a rather exclusive party that squad members from a professional team on an alternate Earth receive. It's his only way to get to a place so guarded, that other "secret agents" who tried to do so just got murdered. The sport you get in the first book is "wayyyy" out there intentionally. The sport you get in the second is down-to-earth, although I write about four separate games and in each one something sensational happens that you would rarely ever see.
In OCULUS, the sequel to Slipstream, Jordan must play hockey to attend Cornell University. Jordan needs Cornell like a man needs air to breathe. It's the only university that has everything he requires for his "quest". They have a particle collider. They have a scientist examining Antarctic ice cores for a climate change model. It really goes well together.
Here's the rub. Cornell has so many applicants every year, that they can pick and choose who they want. They are under no pressure to choose anyone at all. They don't need Jordan, but he needs them. And Jordan isn't rich. He has no "connections".
In the opening chapter of OCULUS, I speak of Jordan's S.A.T. scores. He got a perfect score in math. But his other two areas were average. What gets him in are his hockey laurels. He gets a "likely" letter from the coach of the Cornell team and it is the coach who gets him qualified for a need-based scholarship (the only kind the Ivies have--they do not offer athletic scholarships).
OCULUS is the book where I amplify Jordan's stress to almost "stroke-inducing" proportions. His pride is to his doom. He won't ask for help. He won't cheat. And he won't take out loans. "Why?" you might ask will a student not take out student loans.
Jordan believes that his quest may kill him before he's 21. He's a proud person. He doesn't want to borrow money and never pay it back. So realizing that the odds are not weighed in his favor, Jordan refuses to borrow money. It's taking the whole "honor" thing to a dangerous extent.
It sounds ridiculous right? But THAT'S how stubborn he is. That's Jordan.
Jordan also knows that the only reason he's even in the college is to play hockey. So he feels that if he doesn't give it 150%, then he lets down someone that had faith in him--enough faith to save him. Using the particle collider is really his only hope to succeed in his quest, so this is a pretty big deal.
I write with big stakes. If Jordan doesn't complete his quest in Oculus, it will result in the destruction of Earth and the death of billions of people.
But again...even with all that at stake, he refuses to ask for help.
That's a lot of stress, don't you think?
Anyway, that's the ice hockey connection in my series thus far.
In that crazy moment when you feel struck by a tsunami of rewrites (like when you get fifty pages of corrections from a beta-reader that means months of edits--I love you Jeff and Donna >,<)...
And you feel that you've been swept out to sea...
by your own Attention Deficit Disorder (ummm A.D.D. is bad for a writer...) OH SHINY OBJECT...I shall write two hundred pages about shinies and then my W.I.P. will only be 150,000 words and no one will mind that, right? Right?
Sorry...
for a moment I got taken over by Briane Pagel who writes 200,000 word blog posts...
Back to my Pixar-infused narrative... Ahem...
And you feel that you've been swept out to sea
as if the whole world has turned against you.
And the most obvious solutions in your writing escape you, and you look like an idiot...
Remember the words of Dory the fish
And keep in mind that if, while you're singing this, someone you meet ever says to you these words:
"You are my Nemo".
That you should stop typing and go with them. Because these words mean that they would search
every inch of the world just to find you.
When you get back, all the crap your betas gave you will still be sitting there in the pile of dung that used to be your manuscript. It's all good. Sometimes when stuck, all it takes
is to make the best of a situation. Criticism gives you the freedom to explore areas that you hadn't. Like maybe your story... in case you wrote two-hundred pages about hockey games. And when it's our writing, grab that shovel with both hands, apply spit, and get to shoveling. Writing is hard. George R.R. Martin said so. Hence, it must be true. Have a great Friday.
It's odd sometimes how fiction can echo real life, or one can follow the other. My book that is coming out in May and the sequel that I have finished and is out to beta readers Donna Hole and Jeff Adams (embedded links to their websites) features a protagonist who is among many things, a gay collegiate hockey player (in the first book he's in high school). In the second book, he plays on the Cornell hockey team as a forward and really...no one cares. They just care about his skill. He's fully out, everyone likes him, and he leads a healthy life as a student athlete. But was I really writing fiction? At the time that I first started drafting it over a year ago...I might have been tempted to say yes.
Now...not so much. The world is changing, despite the rhetoric from the right-wing that would have Santorum stripping homosexuals of their human rights.
I can't say how happy I am (and a little stunned) that the NHL is THE FIRST organization to step forward and make it known that a man's sexual orientation should not matter in sports. It's a person's ability to play that should be measured.
Please go and visit the You Can Play Project and voice your support (or do so here in the comments). Locker rooms and sports venues should be free of homophobia. Athletes should only be judged on skill and work ethic.
Anyway, this is a great public service announcement. Go check out the background on this fantastic movement by reading the article at the Washington Post. Have a great Monday.
I've had a lot of fun showing some of my writing this week, and talking about my characters. So much so, that I wanted to solicit some feedback on one scene in the sequel to SLIPSTREAM. I hope you don't mind. Please don't feel obligated to read it. If you do, I ask that you please press play on the embedded video first because the music of Chopin really inspired me to write this piece, and it's classical music so you can read and listen at the same time. :)
Jordan checked behind him and saw no one. “Myd?” he whispered, not wishing to make too
much noise. His eyes darted in every
direction from underneath the shadow cast by the bill from the hockey cap. He strained to hear anything, but he heard no
footfalls. A wind chime sounded its
ghostly music on the far side of an open window.
He turned around and admired the baby grand;
it called to him. He’d never played
anything other than a guitar and most of that had been done on a game for the
Sony Playstation 3. He didn’t understand
the compulsion that he felt to touch it; to run his fingers over the white
lacquer, to press its keys. His Adam’s
apple bobbed under the smooth white skin of his throat, and he walked over,
reached out with the fingers of his right hand, and gently stroked the tops of
them. He caressed them like he would a
lover. Wordlessly, Jordan moved the
bench out, took a seat, and started pressing the keys as musical notes took
root in his mind. He played Nocturne Opus 9 No. 2 by Frederic
Chopin. He’d heard it before but had
never played it, never dreamed of playing it, and suddenly he was able to do so
as if he’d practiced it all of his life.
His fingers flew over the keys, pressing them
in tune as if directed by a ghostly consciousness. He closed his eyes, feeling the music rise
around him like a warm, soothing blanket.
On the ephemeral wings of the Nocturne’s slow and exquisite rhythm,
Jordan saw the sun drenched parlor of the home as it appeared in all seasons of
the year. In the sparkling clear notes
from the piano, he saw a man that looked much like him playing at the exquisite
instrument. He was in his mid-twenties,
blond, slender of build, wearing a blue denim jacket almost identical to the
one he wore now.
Jordan lost track of time, playing the keys,
long narrow fingers flying over them, eyes flitting back and forth as if
reading invisible sheet music. Behind
him, Myddrin entered the room, observing him at the piano. Next to her, stood a tall man whose age lay
between sixty and seventy. He wore plaid
pants, leather shoes, and his hair appeared as white as new snow. He had a mustache and pale green eyes. He looked on Jordan with fascination as the
teenager played the piano, fingers finding keys that had been neglected for
years. It was haunting and beautiful to
hear the music once again, for he’d heard it before…played from a heart that
cherished the sound in the same way that Chopin had cherished Nocturne. And then the strangest thing happened—Jordan
began to cry. Tears welled up and
streamed down his cheeks but he continued unfaltering, fingers guided by a
ghost from his past—by someone that loved him more than his own life.
When he finished, Jordan sat there in complete
silence, blond eyelashes restrained tears with nothing but surface tension,
fully aware that Myd and a stranger watched him. But he couldn’t move as his mind raced. Jordan thought the unthinkable. A single tear fell from his chin and broke on
the piano. “My father played this,” he
said. “My dad played this every single
day, right here, in this spot.”
“—Jordan,” the man said at last. His voice fell upon his ears like thick
syrup.
He turned and looked at the speaker standing
there next to Myddrin. He respectfully
stood and removed his hockey cap and held it in his hands. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me—.”
“It’s all right, son” the man stated. “I haven’t heard Chopin played like that
since your father played it for me—as you’d guessed already—almost eighteen
years ago.”
I have always had a fondness for Chopin. I hope you liked this snippet.
Today is the second day of the I'm Hearing Voices blogfest. We are supposed to use only dialogue, but I couldn't figure out how to do that. So I hope mostly dialogue works. Anyway, here's my less than 250-word attempt at it:
“Sorry.
So, why does warm water freeze faster than cold?” Brianna asked him.
“It’s spread over a huge surface area;
this causes it to experience intense evaporation which creates an endothermic chemical
reaction. Think rapid cooling that
forces a bond with the existing surface area.”
She turned to the counter, “I’ll take
one ‘Eggs Melissa’ and I’ll pay for whatever he’s having.”
“—oh, you don’t have to do that,” Jordan
said. “I’ve got money.”
“I know—I just want to.”
The clerk rolled
his eyes. “Want the Sunrise again, Jordan?”
He nodded yes.
Brianna passed over a $20 bill and while
she waited for her change, she glanced over at him. “Is that a good sandwich?”
“Yes. W-well…I’ve tasted it before and
it’s delicious, but it really isn’t for me.
I buy one for my boyfriend so he’ll have something to eat when he wakes
up.”
Brianna raised her left eyebrow. “You—have—a—boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
She nodded her head in slow motion and
muttered, “Awkward…” They stepped off to the side to wait for their orders
which were being freshly prepared. He
thought he should have said something but was at a loss for words. “So…,” she said, beginning again, “would you
like to trade phone numbers with me?
Cornell is a gargantuan campus and it can be difficult to meet people
when you’re on a busy schedule. I
thought maybe we could catch a snack sometime…you know…on the quad?”
I'm pretty sure I failed this exercise because I included non-dialogue tags to give me direction. But, without those, it just became talking heads. And I can't stand talking heads. But, I think you can tell a lot by the characters from the dialog which may have been the point. I have no idea actually.
It's February 1st and it's Wednesday. It's time for Alex's IWSG from the man that may not have invented blogging, but has certainly defined it.
Because Valentine's Day is almost upon us, this month's insecurity is about love...loving your characters and/or secondary characters too much. My editor finished with my sequel (called Oculus) and remarked that my pacing seemed "off" in it. However, she couldn't pinpoint exactly what made her think this (and a pacing comment can be as general as they come). It's like referring to something as "interesting". So yeah...this is the "something wrong" hinted at in the title above. Meaning that I know something IS wrong, but have no clue on how to go about finding it.
"That's so...interesting...hmmm." <== what exactly
does this mean?
So, I've had some serious pondering to do. And I've been doing this brain crunching for months while I've completely avoided writing anything other than blog posts and preoccupying my mind with television, movies, and books. Unrelated segue...you should watch the "Touch" pilot because it's amazing.
So now that it's almost spring, have I come up with anything?
Well, maybe.
I think that it has to do with two or even three characters that I stuck into the book that probably take up 5,000 words in the overall story and really have no purpose other than to irritate my protagonist (he finds them annoying). Why would I want extraneous characters? Well the intent is to have them available so that I can explore their potential in sequels. In other words...I have no official plan for them in the book I wrote right now. But having them there with no real plan is possibly behind the derailment of the pacing.
Maybe. That at least is my "idea".
But, I don't want to get rid of them. I like them. I find myself feeling repulsed with the thought of unmaking these fictional people. Especially if I'm wrong. Could I be wrong?
It's always possible.
I wish she was my editor right now but she
probably would charge thousands of
dollars of which neither I or my publisher
could possibly afford. My publisher hires
people with barely a high school education
after they pass a grammar test. I imagine it's the
same with most small pubs (with few exceptions).
So anyway, it has me insecure and apathetic at the same time which is why I sit around watching television and reading books. I think I may start to tinker with it, and see if I can more closely identify what she "sensed" when she herself couldn't precisely identify what was at issue. To clarify a little, my editor is what I call "decent". This is the same word I would use to describe the food at 7-Eleven. You go in, drop a few bucks, get a slice of pizza and some wings and you are good to go.
I honestly wish I didn't have a "decent" editor right now. I wish I had a no holds barred kick-ass one. A stellar one. One that could eviscerate a manuscript and identify everything that isn't working and wouldn't care about tact. I imagine this glorious person looking like Elektra from Marvel comics, only with huge sharp fountain pens rather than a pair of oriental sais.
To use a food analogy, how would this compare to food from 7-ELEVEN?
Well for one, it wouldn't. That's like comparing frozen dinners to eating at a four-star restaurant.
The kind of help that I imagine Big Six authors get with their books is something akin to a dining experience at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. It's fine dining, you get a wonderful experience, blow a few hours with a date, and eat healthy food that doesn't make your skin greasy and has no chance of making you sick. I'm a poor bastard that simply doesn't have access to that and my publisher doesn't have the money to hire that level of talent.
But that is just how the cookie crumbles, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is my insecurity of the month.
