Cory Knopes is a designer, musician, and author. He's moderately unsuccessful at them all, garnering millions of people who don't know who he is, with work featured on BuzzFeed, Esquire, IMDb, and even retweeted by Frodo Baggins himself. He's looking for work.

Doubt – Or How I Learned to Stop Caring

delusions-286,266 words. That’s my final tally. No more, no less… y’know, unless it changes.

I’m about to start submitting my manuscript to agents and publishers and, well, I’m not ready. But I’ll sure as hell try to be.

Remind me, again, why I’m doing this? I’ve got blood and sweat staining my shirt as I run down that final stretch toward the completion of my book… but, more importantly, there’s a lot of tears mixed in, as well. I’ve never been so stressed in my life, but I’ve also never felt as accomplished.

This is my work. And I’m proud, a feeling that’s hard to come by in the literary game.

Now, let me yell at you.

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Once Upon a Midnight Query

I woke with something in my head… but, I couldn’t quite settle on what it was. Get it? I’m the nervous magician waiting in the wings.

I wrote MONSTER to satisfy an urgeto scratch an itchand it did just that. I feel good about it, I really do. I’ll continue to push it out thererevise, edit and make it better. I will make it perfect. Therein lies the rub, however, because I’m not sure how. Beneath the errors and misgivings lies my story’s heart. The blood red organ that gives life to my disastrous little tale may not be the most apparent, but its there, beating away, deep inside its dying corpse. I have to save it, but I’m no heart surgeonhell, I barely know CPR.

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Little Rectangles Full of Words

I’ve grown a bit of what can only be described as postpartum depression in regards to my novel. They weren’t lying when they told me the illusion of grandeur would wear off. They said time would slowly whittle down the book to mere ink on a page, no longer the dreams that I aspired to build . . . and they were right. Part of me despises it now and holds it in contempt. I’m ready to move onstart my next big thingbut, much like my like my ragged protagonist, I’m a stubborn son of a bitch. I’ll finish this if it kills me.

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So, I wrote a book.

I can’t say it was an easy thing. You hear of these writers regurgitating ink out onto their pages at incredible rates, a feat I’ve yet to accomplish. Even reading on forums of individuals with the superpower-like ability to churn out word counts in the upper thousands per day seemed impressive but off putting. It just wasn’t me, no matter how I tried.

I’ve been told I have a way about me, that can make for an enjoyable tale, but I find some trouble in bypassing the inherent stuttering that comes with my working mind. Eventually I’ll spit out what I feel sounds best, after much deliberation . . . trouble is, by then I’ve lost my way. My dream has always been to become a writer, glorifying and exaggerating tales pulled from the pockets of my deteriorating gray matter. Writing, to me, is the purest form of art. Music, painting, etc., can become masterpieces in a matter of minutes given the right circumstances. Books, however, they take time regardless of their simplicity; even short stories can take time to grow.

If I can write a novel, I can rule the world. Or, at least, reign over the one I create.

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Scratch that.

Starting over is hard, though, much easier when you barely progressed in the first place.

I liked my site, I really did. It was a marvelous achievement when I’d finally built itthe slider, the featured posts, the ever changing category headers. It was everything I’d hoped to create, but . . . part of me knew it was too much, too grand. My mind carries with it a certain scale that I always attempt to create, no matter the challenge. So, there it sat, for more than a couple years, unfinished and ugly. It had turned in the Winchester Mystery House of websites with many doors and avenues even I didn’t know where they lead.

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Heistland (or How I Went Insane)

So, I started this as a means to an end, to teach myself the basics of video editing and compilation. I have, in the past, created short videos (some of which have gained considerable attention), but those have only ever been as simple as cherry pie, spliced videos with overlaid music as means for emphasis. My background lies in design and that’s just where this project devolved into insanity. I wanted to take the same principles and techniques I followed with the creation of static images and apply them to motion graphics. And, such as the past, I sought out to create an ode to my favorites over at Rooster Teeth.

Problem was… with every edit came a new idea, ad infinitum. I’d figure out something new and apply it to the next until my eyes bled and my fingertips sloughed off. I’ve eaten it up… though, admittedly, it turned into something of a time sink. It’s rough, poorly made and downright ugly at times, there’s countless things to chance and fix. But my child has grown far too old, and I’ve lost all sanity to continue. It’s time to let it out into the world.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfm0DOR3um8]

 

Spoilers to follow.

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