A sea of information for creative professionals & hobbyists.

About the Author: L. A. Nelson

This site was authored and built by L. A. Nelson.

Born in Heidelberg, Germany to American parents, L. A. Nelson is a graduate of ITT Technical Institute of Cordova, Tennessee with an Associates Degree in Information Technology Multimedia, graduating with Highest Academic Honors. She also possesses a certificate from the University of California Riverside in Video Game Management and Design, qualifying her to approach video game publishers.

Before that, L. A. attended Overton High School in Memphis, Tennessee, a Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) institution where she studied under the wonderful instruction of Ms. Sara-Lyn Archibald, who taught more than the art of drama, but also the art of consideration, society, and life. At Overton she studied theatrical stage acting and stage lighting techniques. She was accepted into the program after having worked as a volunteer at the age of 13 at Theatre Memphis, where she assisted in the stage lighting performances and moving stage sets for shows such as A Soldier's Play and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Since the age of 12, she has been dreaming up her own characters and stories in fantastical worlds, but she was not very good at it as a young child. Over the years, she has gathered a staggering amount of personal knowledge on a vast array of subjects, all of which can be utilized to build better, more engaging characters, environments, and storylines.

Due to a terrible job market in the United States, L. A. Nelson has spent the last 10 years studying everything and anything having to deal with creative design of characters, environments, scenes, sets, locations, social systems, etc. in order to hone her own skills. After considering publishing her collective work into a series of books, she decided to post the articles to this site instead as a free education to those that are truly in need of it and can not afford to attend the classes required by local colleges and universities. While she can offer no certificates or degrees, she can offer up a volume of valuable information.

One of L. A.'s personal philosophies is that "The total and complete education of an individual is a right, not a priviledge to be held for ransom..." In order to share her knowledge and expertise, she has dedicated this encyclopedia of knowledge to anyone and everyone who needs use of it. She considers it a small and humble contribution to those out there that can make use of it.

Favorite Quotes

Arthur C. Clarke's Three Laws:

1. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

2. "The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."

3. "The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion."

"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Temper, if ungoverned, governs the whole man."

-Anthony Shaftsbury

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."

- Frederick Douglass

"I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell."

-William Tecumseh Sherman

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

-Isaac Asimov

"This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal, and do well."

- Sir Francis Bacon

"Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way -- that is not easy."

-Aristotle

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."

-Thomas Jefferson

“Paper is poverty,… it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.”

- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Edward Carrington, 1788

“That paper money has some advantages is admitted. But that its abuses also are inevitable and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property, cannot be denied.”

- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Josephus B. Stuart, 1817

"Getting even throws everything out of balance."

- Joe Browne, in Post-Gazette, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

"It's not the greatest country in the world, professor. That's my answer... Fine. Sharon, the N.E.A. is a loser. Yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paycheck, but he gets to hit you with it anytime he wants. It doesn't cost money. It costs volts. It costs airtime and column inches. You know why people don't like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so fucking smart how come they lose so God damn always? And with a straight face, you're gonna tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The U.K., France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom! So two-hundred-and-seven sovereign states in the world, like a hundred-and-eighty of 'em have freedom. And yeah, you, uh, sorority girl. Just in case you accidently wander into a voting booth one day there's some things you should know and one of them is there's absolutely no evidence to suport the statement that 'we're the greatest country in the world.' We're seventh in literacy, twenty-seventh in math, twenty-second in science, forty-ninth in life expectancy, a hundred-and-seventy-eighth in infant mortality, third in median household income, number four in labor force, and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined. Twenty-five of whom are allies. Now, none of this is the fault of a twenty-year-old college student but you nonetheless are without a doubt a member of the worst period generation period ever period. So when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Yosemite? Sure used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons. We passed laws, struck down laws, for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chests. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and we cultivated the world's greatest artists and the world's greatest economy. We reached for the stars. Acted like men. We aspired to intelligence! We didn't belittle it, it didn't make us feel inferior. We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election and we didn't scare so easy. Heh. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men -- men who were revered. First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore."

- Will McAvoy, as portrayed by Jeff Daniels in HBO's The Newsroom

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

- Jiddhu Krishnamurti

"That was a big room full of Republican primary voters booing an American combat soldier who, as he was speaking, was in combat. The audience members who were booing were in Orlando. Soon they'll surely be in Hell, though not soon enough. Not everyone was booing. There were people in the audience who heard Captain Hill say that when he was deployed to Iraq, he was worried that if his sexuality was discovered, they might not let him go. As opposed to most of us who, if told we were being deployed to Iraq, would go Corporal Klinger faster than you can pull on a yellow taffeta picnic dress. I'm sure there were even some people in the building who stood up for Captain Hill, people who had the simple strength of character to turn to the fraction of a human in the seat next to them and say, 'How many different kinds of disgusting do you have to be to boo a man who volunteered to fight and die for you?' I'm sure those people were there. I'm sure there were many of them. But unfortunately, none of them were on the stage. Not one of these would-be commanders in chief took a moment to stand with a line officer. They let him stand alone. Soldiers never do that. Leaders never do that. Witless bullies and hapless punks do it all the time. The only president on stage last night was Stephen Hill. Godspeed, Captain Hill, and come home soon. A grateful nation is waiting to say thank you."

-Will McAvoy, as portrayed by Jeff Daniels in HBO's The Newsroom

"The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web."

-Pablo Piccaso

"Blowing out another’s candle will not make yours shine brighter."

- Unknown

"He who is carried on another's back does not appreciate how far off the town is."

-African proverb

"I don't want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did."

- Henry James

"The man who has no imagination has no wings."

-Muhammad Ali

"Politics is the art of getting money from the rich and votes from the poor, with the pretext of protecting one from the other."

-Muy Interesante

“Government can't give us anything without depriving us of something else.”

-Henry Hazlitt, in The Freeman

"Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible."

-Javier Pascual Salcedo

"Bad laws are the worst form of tyranny."

-Edmund Burke

"Useless laws weaken the necessary laws."

- Montesuieu

"Fall down seven times, stand up eight."

-Asian adage

"Jack of all trades, master of none,

though oftentimes better than master of one."

- Common adage