A universe where a third of the population have the intelligence of infants.
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Friday, February 5, 2016
[Writer Stuff] When the Mentor of one of your Mentors says something
Jim Butcher is pretty much a template of how I've figured out a novel should work. Short chapters. Lots of actions. End every chapter you can on a cliff hanger. Dynamic but sympathetic characters. Interesting and intracate settings.
So when the woman that taught him to write a book writes something, he is naturally going to publish it on his blog.
I definitely think it is worth checking out.
So when the woman that taught him to write a book writes something, he is naturally going to publish it on his blog.
I definitely think it is worth checking out.
Thursday, February 4, 2016
[Script] Revolution Number Eight - Page 5
Scene: The four musicians and the intern sit in the room talking.
Intern Adams
What words were you using earlier? I didn't understand them.
John
You mean the counterpoint of the surrealism of the underlying metaphor?
Intern Adams
The...what?
George
Stop it. Just tell im.
Intern Adams
Tell me....what?
Paul
Look, there was this alien signal and it like told a lot of things but they only got radio signals a hundred years ago.
John
So they think that the British Empire is still the most powerful government on Earth
Ringo
It's Hilarious.
John
I just imaging if we had no
Ringo
Yeah yeah. We all know. We've heard it before.
Intern Adams
Is there some kind of...manual for this? Like where its written down?
Intern Adams
What words were you using earlier? I didn't understand them.
John
You mean the counterpoint of the surrealism of the underlying metaphor?
Intern Adams
The...what?
George
Stop it. Just tell im.
Intern Adams
Tell me....what?
Paul
Look, there was this alien signal and it like told a lot of things but they only got radio signals a hundred years ago.
John
So they think that the British Empire is still the most powerful government on Earth
Ringo
It's Hilarious.
John
I just imaging if we had no
Ringo
Yeah yeah. We all know. We've heard it before.
Intern Adams
Is there some kind of...manual for this? Like where its written down?
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
[Heliotrope] It the Blue Fairy Time to Get it Right
Everyone has heard of the little wooden boy who became real and lived with his lovely father Gepetto. Jape....I am too lazy to google the name of the Itallian Puppeteer who got eaten by a whale. And while we're at it, remind me to tell you the real story of what he did to piss off the whale enough to eat him. No, not literally right now, I mean another time. Whales generally don't just go eating people you know, especially big ones, and last time I checked aint' no bible chapter about the great prophet Gillato. Gape...gil....
So anyway the Blue Fairy. There once lived an old man who was a maker of butter churns. He was the finest maker of butter churns in the land. Now, understand that this is a colloquialism becuase land is relative when there are a thousand little kingdoms, so he was in fact the only butter churn maker in the land, but was actually a remarkably good butter churn maker and did it better than anyone else in a two hundred mile radius but the finest butter churn maker in a two hundred mile radius doesn't sound very fairy tale like, does it? You see? It takes time to get these things right.
Anyway, the butter churn maker had a passion for sculpting. He started with soft butter, and eventually moved to wood. The forest near him was infested with noxious butter eating termites though so these proved poor materials with which to learn to sculpt. Thus, he eventually turned to stone. He started making faces, and then worked with other materials. He eventually began making artistic stone butter churns, and was known throughout the land (200 mile radius). He grew quite rich but as time is want to do, he grew old. Granted, immortal creatures don't...but humans still do. Stop distracting me.
He grew lonely in his old age, and sought to have a child with a local maid. Alas, he smelled for bathing was something he considered a somewhat optional activity. So the rich but lonely butter churn maker looked for a shallow bimbo throughout the land who would sell herself for coin and he found one but alas, though he loved her, she was not capable of having a child. This, and the fact that...let's just say that the butter churn maker was somewhat ignorant of what it actually took to make a child and the shallow bimbo was willing to let it stay that way soooo..
Eventually, she grew bored and left. This made the butter churn maker very sad. So he began to make a super super realistic butter churn, pouring his whole life into the butter churn that was shaped like a boy, wishing on the great northern star that his little stone butter churn boy would come to life.
And then he died.
The blue fairy, arriving five minutes too late, felt sad and wept tears of bitter procrastination. They fell onto the little stone butter churn boy, granting him life. She swore that the next time she would get it right, and left. The poor stone butter churn boy was left alone and confused in the world, entirely unknowning of the great sacrifice that his father had made to bring him to life. But the Blue Fairy is a bit...confused. I mean, let's face it, her hobby is granting inanimate objects life and it only occurred to her later to give the things she animated some kind of a purpose.
But that is another story.
So anyway the Blue Fairy. There once lived an old man who was a maker of butter churns. He was the finest maker of butter churns in the land. Now, understand that this is a colloquialism becuase land is relative when there are a thousand little kingdoms, so he was in fact the only butter churn maker in the land, but was actually a remarkably good butter churn maker and did it better than anyone else in a two hundred mile radius but the finest butter churn maker in a two hundred mile radius doesn't sound very fairy tale like, does it? You see? It takes time to get these things right.
Anyway, the butter churn maker had a passion for sculpting. He started with soft butter, and eventually moved to wood. The forest near him was infested with noxious butter eating termites though so these proved poor materials with which to learn to sculpt. Thus, he eventually turned to stone. He started making faces, and then worked with other materials. He eventually began making artistic stone butter churns, and was known throughout the land (200 mile radius). He grew quite rich but as time is want to do, he grew old. Granted, immortal creatures don't...but humans still do. Stop distracting me.
He grew lonely in his old age, and sought to have a child with a local maid. Alas, he smelled for bathing was something he considered a somewhat optional activity. So the rich but lonely butter churn maker looked for a shallow bimbo throughout the land who would sell herself for coin and he found one but alas, though he loved her, she was not capable of having a child. This, and the fact that...let's just say that the butter churn maker was somewhat ignorant of what it actually took to make a child and the shallow bimbo was willing to let it stay that way soooo..
Eventually, she grew bored and left. This made the butter churn maker very sad. So he began to make a super super realistic butter churn, pouring his whole life into the butter churn that was shaped like a boy, wishing on the great northern star that his little stone butter churn boy would come to life.
And then he died.
The blue fairy, arriving five minutes too late, felt sad and wept tears of bitter procrastination. They fell onto the little stone butter churn boy, granting him life. She swore that the next time she would get it right, and left. The poor stone butter churn boy was left alone and confused in the world, entirely unknowning of the great sacrifice that his father had made to bring him to life. But the Blue Fairy is a bit...confused. I mean, let's face it, her hobby is granting inanimate objects life and it only occurred to her later to give the things she animated some kind of a purpose.
But that is another story.
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
[Script] Revolution Number Eight - Page 4
Agent Chwech
Well, I'll leave you lot to it then.
He leaves.
Scene
Agent Chwech walks down a long white hall. There is a white table. The decorations are white or at least light in color. The door is black with a black doornob.
He reaches for the doornob.
Closeup of the doornob as his hand turns it.
Scene
Esme Euphrasia sits behind a classic desk, with a literal 'in' box full of paper work on one side, and an 'out' box on the other side. Both are filled with papers. Every few seconds, she picks up a piece of paper and stamps it with one of five or six stamps and an inkwell. She never looks at the papers, but the motion is deliberate. As the camera angle moves about the room, from time to time, a pair of hands in black sleeves put a new pile of paper in the in box and take some of the papers in the old box. The hands are the only thing that is seen, never the body and at most a black sleeved or clad arm. Faint smoke wafts in the room though Esme is never seen smoking.
Agent Chwech
They're doing quite well.
Director Euphrasia
Bollocks. They doing nothing of the sort.
Agent Chwech
Do you think they're stalling?
Director Euphrasia
I think so. Can't prove it, and them being them we can't just make em disappear. They keep doing well enough that I can't just sack them and find another more plaint group.
Agent Chwech
And pliance is important is it?
Director Euphrasia
Watch your tone with me. I don't care how bright a star you think you are. This is the most important thing we've done in twenty years.
Agent Chwech
It's alien contact. More like the history of the species.
Director Euphrasia
There is a war on. There is more at stake here than just a bunch of nonsense from flying saucers.
Well, I'll leave you lot to it then.
He leaves.
Scene
Agent Chwech walks down a long white hall. There is a white table. The decorations are white or at least light in color. The door is black with a black doornob.
He reaches for the doornob.
Closeup of the doornob as his hand turns it.
Scene
Esme Euphrasia sits behind a classic desk, with a literal 'in' box full of paper work on one side, and an 'out' box on the other side. Both are filled with papers. Every few seconds, she picks up a piece of paper and stamps it with one of five or six stamps and an inkwell. She never looks at the papers, but the motion is deliberate. As the camera angle moves about the room, from time to time, a pair of hands in black sleeves put a new pile of paper in the in box and take some of the papers in the old box. The hands are the only thing that is seen, never the body and at most a black sleeved or clad arm. Faint smoke wafts in the room though Esme is never seen smoking.
Agent Chwech
They're doing quite well.
Director Euphrasia
Bollocks. They doing nothing of the sort.
Agent Chwech
Do you think they're stalling?
Director Euphrasia
I think so. Can't prove it, and them being them we can't just make em disappear. They keep doing well enough that I can't just sack them and find another more plaint group.
Agent Chwech
And pliance is important is it?
Director Euphrasia
Watch your tone with me. I don't care how bright a star you think you are. This is the most important thing we've done in twenty years.
Agent Chwech
It's alien contact. More like the history of the species.
Director Euphrasia
There is a war on. There is more at stake here than just a bunch of nonsense from flying saucers.
Monday, February 1, 2016
[Naked City] The following piece is written for Naked City with the theme of "Oblivion"
Hello there from another world. I'm Rhombus Ticks. The voice you hear is not my own, but it wasn't when I read to you before. TC, my regular host, is located in Miami, while Len has agreed to read this piece to you. I shall endevor to be a gentleman while here.
Oblivion.
[Pause]
Alright, now pretend I just filled five minutes with awkward silence. That was my first idea. And as much as it appealed to me, the recent podcast I did not do that involved nothing but numbers pushed the envelope enough for my tastes for a while, so I thought I'd speak about something else. The space between worlds. I write a lot about Fairy or Terra or Wonderbreadland but one doesn't simply wander to the nearest bus and order a ticket back and forth.
The moon is so far away it takes a second for light to travel there. That means that if you look at a piano falling on some jerk blocking you in traffic, an astronaut on the moon with a really powerful telescope wouldn't see it fall on the guy until a second later. It takes fourteen minutes to see it with a magic telescope (because let's be honest that would have to be one damn big telescope, or maybe a telescope linked to an ipad or something) anyway, that guy on mars wouldn't see the piano fall for fourteen minutes. That takes a full year for it to reach Alpha Centauri.
The gaps between atoms and sub atomic particles are even more staggering in their own way. So much space between everything but it doesn't even hold a candle to the space between what you consider real and what you consider merely fictional. I mean, metaphorically it is right next door, a heart beat away but all interesting uses of chemistry aside, Sauron isn't going to be playing golf on the course tomorrow morning with....well, you know. People. On your world. Who are the kind of people who would likely hang out with Sauron.
You know.
Anyway, where was I? Time breaks down here. The very concept of space, the thing that you share in common with a sun or a black hole or the farthest bit of light in the sky, so far that it goes to the edge of your ever expanding universe. Your dreams are with you every day but they are also farther than the beginning of time itself. No wonder so many obsess about death. When entropy claims us, there is only the memory and the dream of what was. Is there an afterlife? There is here, but there? Its a grayer area. And whether or not you believe it real, for practical purposes its as far away as I am.
Oblivion. It's a hell of a thing to overcome, but there are tricks. Journals. Stone monuments, astral projection. You know. Find creative ways to work around it. Because despite the distance between you and the impossible, I speak from experience when I say that exploration of it is worth it.
That's all. Good night.
Oblivion.
[Pause]
Alright, now pretend I just filled five minutes with awkward silence. That was my first idea. And as much as it appealed to me, the recent podcast I did not do that involved nothing but numbers pushed the envelope enough for my tastes for a while, so I thought I'd speak about something else. The space between worlds. I write a lot about Fairy or Terra or Wonderbreadland but one doesn't simply wander to the nearest bus and order a ticket back and forth.
The moon is so far away it takes a second for light to travel there. That means that if you look at a piano falling on some jerk blocking you in traffic, an astronaut on the moon with a really powerful telescope wouldn't see it fall on the guy until a second later. It takes fourteen minutes to see it with a magic telescope (because let's be honest that would have to be one damn big telescope, or maybe a telescope linked to an ipad or something) anyway, that guy on mars wouldn't see the piano fall for fourteen minutes. That takes a full year for it to reach Alpha Centauri.
The gaps between atoms and sub atomic particles are even more staggering in their own way. So much space between everything but it doesn't even hold a candle to the space between what you consider real and what you consider merely fictional. I mean, metaphorically it is right next door, a heart beat away but all interesting uses of chemistry aside, Sauron isn't going to be playing golf on the course tomorrow morning with....well, you know. People. On your world. Who are the kind of people who would likely hang out with Sauron.
You know.
Anyway, where was I? Time breaks down here. The very concept of space, the thing that you share in common with a sun or a black hole or the farthest bit of light in the sky, so far that it goes to the edge of your ever expanding universe. Your dreams are with you every day but they are also farther than the beginning of time itself. No wonder so many obsess about death. When entropy claims us, there is only the memory and the dream of what was. Is there an afterlife? There is here, but there? Its a grayer area. And whether or not you believe it real, for practical purposes its as far away as I am.
Oblivion. It's a hell of a thing to overcome, but there are tricks. Journals. Stone monuments, astral projection. You know. Find creative ways to work around it. Because despite the distance between you and the impossible, I speak from experience when I say that exploration of it is worth it.
That's all. Good night.
Saturday, January 30, 2016
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