Understanding Pandemics

By Doug Clark
Head Writer - The Inspiration Engine


With all that is going on with Covid 19, I thought it would be a good idea to help everyone out with some knowledge about pandemics in general. This article, Visualizing the History of Pandemics, is a great visual on how big some pandemics have been over the last 2000 years.


Please, practice physical and social distancing, wash your hands, and stay safe.
Thanks for reading.

Check out my new published short story

By Doug Clark
Head Writer - The Inspiration Engine


Hey all, I got published again! This time at Soft Cartel. Read my short Story A Sinful Wager.

Thanks for reading.

Beautiful Lies, Painful Truths Vol.1 The Reviews

My story, Ghost Trap, is on page 169!!!

This is the End of Doctor Who as we know it...

Douglas Clark
-Head writer, The Inspiration Engine

We have come to an end of an era!

The Doctor was always a male character; it was an essential and foundational part of who the character was and the story of Doctor Who followed certain patterns because of this. Now, because they have fundamentally altered the character it is no longer Doctor Who as we knew it. It will become something... different. It can never be what it was even if after this iteration they go back to a male character.

I look at it this way: For a character to have genuine value, that character has to have a few consistent core characteristics. When those core characteristics are fundamentally changed, the character is irrevocably changed. So all of this talk about the Doctor being a man or a woman changes the essence of the character. What was once reliable and understood now becomes unrecognizable and distracting. Granted there are revelations and secrets revealed over the course of a character’s story arc that alters them, but without the core foundation fans have come to recognize, the story becomes convoluted. Also, if gender change was so easily manipulated in this character's race, why hasn't this been addressed in any serious way before? I know some will mention the last season or two as a fact that supports this change, but really, that shoehorned in bit of reconning seems disingenuous. That’s another thing that makes this move so jarring and unsettling.

Why does a character, who for 50 plus years being presented one way now has to change so radically? Why do you think Captain America fans were outraged when he turned out to be a Hydra agent? True fans feel betrayed on a fundamental level. Not because they are gender biased or bigoted, but because they were devoted to a character that was presented in a way they identified with. Then the rug was pulled out from under them and the character they cherished and loved for so long, because they had the core characteristics they loved, was essentially dead. That's what has happened here.

I have no ill will toward female centered stories. EllenRipley is

one bad-ass you do not want to mess with, partly because of her gender. And no one I know of has suggested rebooting Aliens with Eric Ripley or worse yet making another Aliens movie in the same cinematic universe and just cloning the now dead character as a man, because 'it's about time' as it's been said for Doctor Who.

Wonder Woman is an extreme example of female power that has dominated comics for years. One of the defining, and endearing characteristics of Wonder Woman is that she IS a woman. Her battle for righeousness and justice is in part framed and influenced by her feminity and there is nothing wrong with that. But there's no clamor to alter her gender. 

What really bothers me is the fact that those in power at the BBC and Doctor Who felt it necessary to usurp an already established character to implant a new paradigm. That to me is lazy writing. Why not introduce a new strong, dominant female character that has a chance to become a full-fledged independent character all on her own without a crutch of 50 years of character lore? Hmm? Or perhaps reintroduce a strong, well-liked character that is already established, like Romana? Is that some kind of subconscious admission that a female character can’t or couldn’t hold their own in a male centered Whovian universe? I think Ellen and Diana would disagree.

I remember a long time ago when Tom Baker jokingly suggested the idea of a female Doctor. I found the quip trit and silly then, and now I find the actual change irritating for more than just what some people might call gender bias (the aforementioned lazy writing for one). We could talk about this ad nauseam but it really comes down to established norms and character expectations. If this gender bending was a mainstay of the character from the beginning, or introduced or even hinted at long ago, it would be easier to identify with that aspect of the character. 

Doctor Who as we've known it is forever gone. Whatever comes next will be new, a variation, an alteration, some perhaps would say an aberration, but not a continuation.

Thanks for reading.

Comments are always welcome. 

Once More Unto the Breach...

Douglas Clark
-Head writer, The Inspiration Engine

Persistence and Perseverance pay off. I've been published again, this time in The Corvus Review. 

My story, Don't Dance, starts on page 38.

Thanks for reading.

I Got Published Again!!!

Douglas Clark
-Head writer, The Inspiration Engine

Hello everyone. Just thought I'd let you know. I got published again!!!! This time by Five 2 One Magazine. 

Check out my short story here. 

Thanks for reading. 

Hell’s Itch is a Nightmare!

Douglas Clark
-Head writer, The Inspiration Engine

I thought I’d share a little story with you considering I just got another sunburn despite my best efforts with sunscreen.

Okay, so for most of you, the term Hell’s Itch doesn’t mean a damned thing. For others, they nod their head silently and recall all too well the most agonizing pain they ever experienced.

I’ll explain.

When people get sunburned it hurts, then it itches a little, the skin starts to peel, it looks freaky and then heals and life goes on its merry way. But for a very select few of us, it’s not that simple. See after we get a sunburn, and it hurts, it starts to itch a little, then a little more, then a lot more, and then… we are dragged down a path of nightmarishly agonizing skin torture that is absolutely hellish in every way.

Have you ever had an itch and deliberately didn’t scratch it to see if it would go away? It didn’t right. You had to scratch it after it got to be unbearable. Then the ordeal was over. Well, with Hell’s Itch no amount of itching will make the irritation go away. Scratching in fact makes it worse, but it’s so agonizing attempting to avoid scratching the itch it’s unavoidable. So you get caught in an ever increasing cycle of painful itching that you must scratch only to make the itching worse.

And it is absolutely agonizing…

I’ve been the sufferer of Hell’s Itch three times. And the worst part of it is, the sunburn preceding it doesn’t have to be that bad. But the itching gets worse and worse until you lay spasming on the floor in convulsive twitching and shaking because absolutely no amount of scratching alleviates the itch.

When it first happened to me, I did get a bad sunburn. The first day was typical, but after I took a shower, all hell broke loose. The itching mounted, got worse, became deeper, more pronounced, then intense. I started to get anxious. What is happening to me? I screamed. Then the fear mixes with anxiety, plus the relentless itching. I grabbed a bottle of Aloe Vera skin cream and slathered it all over my back right on my sunburn. I could say it was like throwing gasoline on a fire, but to be honest, it was more like igniting a nuclear bomb on a mushroom cloud. Holy HELL. I literally fell to the floor crying and screaming. The intensity of the itching reached down to my soul.

Others have said it was the worst pain they ever experienced and I completely agree.

Quickly I hit the shower scrubbed with a loofa. It hurt but surprisingly the pain of racking a coarse loofa over burnt skin was easier to deal with than the hellishly unrelenting itching. I turned the water to warm because I hate cold showers and surprisingly the heat also helped.

After getting out of the shower, the itching returned almost in full force. I contemplated the ER but resigned myself to CVS to get some kind of skin cream. There I wandered the aisles, body shaking, spasming, scrapping my back against any surface that could provide an edge to stop the itch even for a nanosecond until I found a bottle of Banana boat after sunburn itch cream. Sadly, I cannot remember the name of their product and their website had nothing about it. (Side note: others have said that A&D ointment, or diaper cream works wonders. Vitamin A and Vitamin D are good for healing skin). Anyway, I bought the bottle ran home. Picking a test patch of burned skin I applied some and waited. Within a minute the itching subsided. So I poured copious amounts of the cream on my back. Instantly I found some relief.

I tried to lay down but ten minutes later the itch returned. So again I lathered on more cream. Again the itch relented, momentarily. So every ten minutes for the next three hours I glopped on a layer of this miracle cream until finally the last application. Ten minutes when by and still no Hell’s Itch. It was irritated and itchy but not debilitating. Then 15, then 20 minutes, a half hour went by and the agony did not return. I finally fell asleep. Two hours later I woke up and started to feel the all too horrifying effects of the itch mounting another tearful-causing floor-sprawling crying fest for me. Quickly I applied more cream and beat the skin irritating demon back down to hell.

I followed that pattern for the entire morning. Eventually the itch became manageable. Within a day, the Hell’s Itch succumbed to my exorcism and remained in the bowels of Hade’s basement. But the horror of my experience remained.

I’ve since learned that antihistamines like Benadryl and Advil Cold and Sinus also help to beat back the itching beast. Others recommend Peppermint Oil although I’ve never tried that one. So I’ve put together an emergency aid list of things to do if you ever have the horrid experience of suffering from Hell’s Itch.

What to do:

1. Take a hot, hot shower – The pain is easier to deal with than the itch.

2. Drink LOOOOOOOTs of water.

3. Take an antihistamine, then take some more (Don’t overdose though).

4. Get yourself some A&D ointment, Peppermint Oil, (DO NOT use Aloe Vera) and lather on as much as you can repeatedly.

5. A pillow to scream into.

Hopefully if you have someone to help you the process might be easier. And for fuck’s sake, start using sunscreen and stay out of the sun much as possible.

Good luck.

Thanks for reading. 

A Very Fine Old Battleship

Douglas Clark
-Head writer, The Inspiration Engine

Here's a great article by Geoffrey Morrison about an old Battleship. I love ships, but there's something slightly sad about this one. It's permanently landlocked. You'll see in the picture gallery that it will never sail again. There's something so confining about that. But the pictures are great.

(picture taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Mikasa)

Enjoy.

My Published Short Story

By Douglas Clark
Head writer: The Inspiration Engine


Hi everyone. Good news!!! I got published again. This time in the Paragon Journal. 

My short story, Twenty Minutes to El Cajon Boulevard, appears on page 83.

Please read my story and enjoy.

Doug

Doug Clark - in The Syzygy Poetry Journal

By Doug Clark
Head Writer - The Inspiration Engine


I am pleased to announce that two of my poems have been published in The Syzygy Poetry Journal. I have provided a direct link to my poems here.


Below is the acceptance letter I received from the editors of Syzygy Poetry Journal. I'll be keeping it in close proximity from now on as a reminder of what persistence can yield.

The key to getting published is never giving up.


Thanks for reading.

Doug Clark Stand up