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Scribe Hard

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Writing can be fun, but it also comes with its own fair share of challenges. Like, I don't know, a blogging website that changes your font size. Just as an example. As a writer, I come across the standard fair of obstacles that all writers do. So, as a way to explore those common issues and hopefully help aspiring writers, I'm going to break down the big names and offer some advice on how to combat those obstacles. -#1; The Tools- Before I wrote books, I had this picture in my head of what "writing a book" was supposed to look like. I imagined myself with a laptop at a coffee place, using their free wifi and overpriced drinks to fuel my creative drive. I once thought I needed a dedicated office, or a special chair, or one of those desks that can move up or down depending on if you're standing or sitting. But all of that was wrong. I use a laptop and Google Doc for writing, but I keep notes on my phone. I have plenty of pens, pencils, and notebooks if I ever want t...
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Staring into The Mirror That Stares Back at Me, or Something

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-It's Okay To Be Afraid- Fear. A four letter word that also spells power, weakness, and acceptability. Fear is something we all carry and how we choose to carry it defines how it plagues us, or helps us. At the beginning of 2026, I published a book called "The Mirror Stares Back". It was my second attempt at writing horror and I took a lot inspiration from modern online horror stories. Creepypastas can be a hit or miss, but there is some quality, cerebral horror stories out there if you look for them.  Listening to a lot of Creepcast got me in a mood and I wrote MSB as an exploration of my own fears. These are fears I will share with you today. -Fear of Lostness- In the first story titled "Door Ajar" a woman is making a long drive home overnight and her car breaks down on the highway. It is late, snowing, and nobody else is on the road. If she stays in the car until sunlight-she could freeze to death, but if she gets out and walks to the nearest rest stop; she...
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Nincompoop Direct

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  This is a written medium, so you're gonna have to imagine that fun " click " sound they do in those Nintendo Directs. -Where in The World is Rafael Ayala?- I've been dead silent through the month of September and I'm very aware of that. This, dear reader, does not indicate a loss of inspiration, but just a redirection of it. I've been really digging into my current book, "Versus-Verse". It's a story about these two cousins who get sucked into a fighting game at an arcade, and end up living in the bodies of video game characters for years. It's coming along great, and if I keep up my daily writing I think it should be done by the end of October. -I'm Also Just a Normal Guy- Okay, "normal" in as much as "I have other stuff going on". In my personal life I run a tabletop game, that new "Wolverine" game came out, there's a few social gatherings I've been planning for, and some family events too. It'...
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First Rule of Fight Cup

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  -The Beauty of Violence- I love fight scenes. I eat those scenes up like a drama kid with "Wicked". I wear comic book movies on my sleeve, but we're talking Jackie Chan's "Drunken Master". We're talking "Rocky", "The Matrix", "Kingsman", oh my God that church scene. There's just a magic to fight scenes. Choreographed suspense. It's an art, it's a talent, it's a combination of everything carefully crafted and everything macho. Strength meeting beauty. Passion meeting purpose. Chicks dig that crap. I've published ten books, seven of them being fictional stories, and many of those stories having at least a squabble, at most a series of high stakes fight scenes. And it's not easy, honestly. You can just write "Omar punches Cruz in the face" over and over. You gotta be artsy fartsy with it. "Reaching his breaking point, Omar flung himself with unyielding hate as he laid his fist into Cruz...
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The Five Kinds of Bad Guys

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  -You Need a Villain- Well, I guess you don't need a villain, but some sort of obstacle kinda needs to be there. Otherwise you're just doing a slice-of-life kind of thing, which is fine too. But, if I can make a case for creating a villain for your story? It's fun. Doesn't matter if they're funny, pathetic, twisted, or pure vibes, a villain can sometimes take more limelight than the hero of their story. Today, I want to talk about some of my villains. -The Patient- In my horror collection "The Mirror Stares Back", there is a story aptly named "I Die When The Hour is Over". The story centers on a person seeking psychological help and they kidnap this doctor and lock them in their basement. They don't seem interested in the standard channels of therapy. They would sooner hurt someone to get their help. The Patient is the most sympathetic villain we're going to talk about. He just needs help and doesn't know how to get it. Or he think t...
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World Building While Building Robots

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  -Science Fiction; Fully Loaded- In my second book, "Addiction 2 Fiction" features a short story called "Blue Collar Robot". This story was from the perspective of an employee of a manufacturing company called The Metalworks Department. Blake's job was to write advertisements for the company and their products. These products are giant robots. "Advertisements" is the official term, but really it's propaganda. In this story, giant robots are the core industry of the world. And that's because in the year 1985, a giant alien-publicly referred to The Blue Fear-landed on the North-Eastern coast of the United States. In a world where an alien can fall from the sky, and giant robots are built across the world, I knew it was important for this world to have an identity. There needed to be a history, there needed to be societal establishments created as a result of these things being true. Writing characters is easy for me, so to weave a world-a breath...
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Fictional Food For Fictional People

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  -The Menu of Myth of Legend- Full disclosure, friends. I don't know much about cooking. I can make eggs, I can boil pasta, and I can grill like a motherf-I've got a very limited culinary skillset, to say the least. Which is why "Ravenous" was such a challenging book to write with proper balancing between cooking and fantasy adventures. It was a tough nut to crack. Or should I say, egg to crack? Ha! "Ravenous" is a story about Jack, a former knight who wants to become a famous travelling chef. He and his increasing band of friends take their makeshift food truck across a medieval continent plagued by goblins, vampires, and the occasional sea monster. See, I wanted "Ravenous" not to feel too much like a run of the mill fantasy book, but also not too heavily based around cooking. I had to find a sweet spot in the middle. A real medium rare kinda story. There are only about eight "Recipe Sessions" in the book. These are fictional meals prep...
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