The PSS Lucille whined as its engines powered down after hitting its cruising velocity. Captain Jake Lee placed his hands behind his neck and tilted his head back. He had grown accustomed to the constant acceleration over the last three days, and when it stopped, he found himself leaning forward to counteract forces that were no longer there.
“Slingshot complete, Captain,” Pilot Cini Macanama said. “I’m recalculating our trajectory.”
Jake twisted his neck to the right until it cracked. He twisted his neck to the left and lingered to look at Cini. She was a beautiful girl. No, he corrected himself, a beautiful officer. He knew he could be court marshaled for such thoughts, but that was what made her titillating. Cini was lanky with more bones than limbs. She pulled her legs up on the chair until her knees dug into her flat chest. Her neck leaned forward and her arms looked like they sprouted from her knees as she pushed controls. For safety reasons, Jake could not see her projected controls, and her fingers looked like they were massaging ghostly shoulders.
“No need to recalculate,” Jake said. “In the old days, we’d eyeball the starfield and check for inconsistencies. I’ve flown this route for the past ten years, and I don’t even have to consult the charts to know where we are. We didn’t deviate. Now, put down those controls and relax. We have another couple of hours before our next maneuver.”
“Captain, section 35.2(a) subsection one clearly states that after completing a slingshot, all trajectories must be re-fed and rerun by the computer.” Cini’s army green eyes didn’t move from her controls as she spoke. Jake admired Cini’s skinny, apish face, the skin stretched so tight that her features appeared sunken.
“Have it your way, Ms. Macanama.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“You’re not piloting a military planetship anymore, Cini. This is a governmental pleasure vessel.”
“Run by the military, captain. I’m still an officer as are you, and we have regulations to follow.”
“Do you think the thousand passengers drinking three hundred gallons of alcohol and eating two hundred pounds of raw fish every day care about military procedures? They only care about getting from Earth to Europa safely and enjoyably. There’s a place for procedures, Cini, and I’m going to clue you in to something my twenty-five years in the navy taught me: the people who write the regulations, they were never pilots, and the people who write the programs that run our computers that fly these ships, they were never pilots either. You have to learn to trust in yourself and your skill over what the computer or the manual tells you. It’s your gut that’s going to save your life in an emergency, not chapter so-and-so from regulation so-and-so.”
“As you say, Captain. I have three more programs to run to finish the recalculation.”
Jake laughed and waved his hand for Cini to continue. Jake knew he shouldn’t judge Cini. He was like her when he was young: ambitious, rule abiding, he can’t figure out what changed in him over the years; cynicism is a sneaky beast.
***
I had hoped to write more. Below, you’ll see a sort of outline of where I was heading. Today was a very good day. My headache vanished, I accomplished much around the house, I had a wonderfully heated debate during work (which I won, sort of) about a future direction of the company with people who influence decisions, and I came up—at Julie’s suggestion—with a fantastical story to break me away from the accountant stories. Thanks to a busy evening at work, I managed to write the notes and the above introduction before driving home. After cooking and cleaning, all my caffeine-induced energy waned, and I struggled to write much else.
I’m hoping that since I have a plan and at least one interesting character (Cini), you will see a part two of this story.
Notes (includes spoilers—not that anyone cares):
Outline: Jake wants Cini. Pirates intercept vessel. Handling of situation. Endgame.
Paul = Jake (pilot) – very good pilot; talks way too much for too long; believes he knows what’s best at all times; disappointed with the new technology that takes decisions away from him.
Laura = Cini (co-pilot) – artsy but believes in technology; is a pilot b/c it gives her free time to explore her creative interest; very hard worker.
Planetship = Intercontinental 1501 – two-week “cruise” to different planets; high security; 1000 people onboard.
Pirate = terrorist? Computerized voice – all computer-controlled pirate ship with a set program that the pilot knows what will happen; the scenarios are all publicized so there’s never a misunderstanding; pilots (and the 1501’s computer) have been instructed to obey the instructions, pay the outstanding amount, and be on their way; the amount is taken from the captain’s salary (as per Intercontinental’s attempt to keep costs down), and Jake wants to make a run for it. The smaller asteroid-jumper planetships are driving the profits of the planetship industry down, as is the higher antimatter costs because of a crisis around the mining station of Jupait, a mining colony that circles and creates antimatter within the great gravity of the gas giant. (All parallels, all cheesy—this is about the decision and the politics.)
Original Outline:
Old school pilot – beginning to appreciate what the new technology of the starships provided him. Jake: runs afoul of privateers on his trip to a planet. His co-pilot, a young whippersnapper, trusts the ship to make all the decisions. Jake decides to take control at a crucial moment, trusting his own instincts over the computers, and the ship is destroyed. Choice: should I take control or let the computer fly; result: ship is destroyed, all two-hundred passengers killed. Foil, the co-pilot, who believes in the ship’s technology over Jake’s cowboy flying.
Original idea:
Today’s story: simple, sci-fi story of a guy in a spaceship fighting aliens in a spaceship.
The PSS Lucille hit its cruising velocity and whined as its engines powered down. Captain Jake Thomson III watched the display for anomalies and found none. He placed his hands behind his neck and stretched his head back. He had grown accustomed to the constant acceleration over the last three days, and now that it stopped, he found himself leaning forward to counteract forces that were no longer there. Jake returned to the display and read the route’s report: the solar winds were calm and there were no reports of pirate activity in the sector.
“Slingshot complete, Captain,” First Officer Cini Manama said. “Lucille is free of Jupiter’s orbit. She will commence trajectory correction in one point four parsecs.”
Jake twisted his neck to the right until it cracked. He twisted his neck to the left and lingered on Cini. She was a beautiful girl. No, he corrected himself, a beautiful naval officer. Cini was lanky with more bones than limbs. She pulled her legs up on the chair until her knees dug into the flat of her chest. Her neck leaned forward and her arms looked like they sprouted from her knees as she pushed controls. Jake could not see the projected controls, and Cini’s fingers appeared to massage ghostly shoulders.
“Cini, I have to ask, why are you in this business?”
“Are you asking me this because I’m a girl, Captain?” Cini’s army green eyes did not leave the controls, and there was no scorn in her voice. Her words sounded empty as if she had been asked it so often that her answer lost meaning.
“I’ve been with the navy for a long time.” Jake pointed his finger at Cini. “And I’m an old man. I ask more because I wanted to give you my unsolicited advice than because I wanted to judge you.” Jake noticed his hand shook and jerked it away. Jake didn’t remember when his hands first started shaking, just as he didn’t remember growing old. Jake corrected himself, as he usually did, it wasn’t that he forgot growing old; it was that he forgot ever being young.
Cini looked away from the controls to Jake with an amused expression. When she smiled, the skin on her skinny, apish face stretched so tight that her features appeared sunken. Jake regretted for not the first time that he wasn’t thirty years younger. “Please, Captain. I’m always interested in advice from my elders.”
“The navy used to be an honorable profession, Cini. Men,” Jake corrected himself, “and women could make a good living. I don’t know what happened or when it happened, but it’s not that way now. I would never recommend this career to any young person. After thirty years in, I’m barely scratching by.”
“How very cynical of you, Captain. And here I thought you were concerned because I was a defenseless woman.”
***
That’s not it. I promise (as if you haven’t heard that before). I’m taking a more relaxed but continuous approach. I’ve noticed my output dropping appreciatively, and the quality with it. I’ve decided to take a slower approach. I’m going to continue working on this story, writing a page or so every day and seeing where it takes me. I spent a couple of hours on the above. Much of it was planning, as I discovered where the characters are going to take me. It’s heading in an interesting direction, although it’s probably hard to see it where you’re sitting.
Today was a good quiet day, part of a good quiet weekend. I love spending time with Julie, but I like days like this as well. I wandered around a bit this morning and took a drive to my local bucks of stars. There I sat with a tall mocha and planned and wrote the above fragment. I’ve been trying to write a story in one day, and (thanks to some pushing in the right direction) I’ve realized that most stories don’t want to be told in a day. Hopefully, this slow and steady approach to writing will bear some results.
Random notes that will make little sense: Slow writing—time to think, plan; but don’t leave out the writing; angst-choice-why is it about choice? Everything is about growth and change. I don’t want to read something w/o growth. Who chooses? Poor guy—he’s getting taken advantage of. Jake? I want to love the characters. It can’t be b/c the money comes out. Yes it is. But who then? Reckless, rebellious? He’s had enough. They beat him down, threatened his pension; the pirates attack; he decides to take matters into his own hands. What else? It’s not a cruise ship but a low-end cargo ship—he’s a trucker and Cini is in training—college grad, making her way up the co.’s ladder. No—she’s a pilot, working her way up to larger vessels.
Jake & Cini: Jake’s beliefs: worked for the navy for many years; old now and approaching mandatory retirement where they’ll take his stick away. Bitter about retirement and how little money and pension he has coming. He likes Cini, but he is too old—he feels he is too old to woo her. Cini does like him—he’s a powerful man who knows how to make decisions. Jake—angst about his age, loneliness; he gave his life to flying PSS—financial situation and Cini, which more of a regret than anything else. Connection: Dr. Dolin—not a worthwhile profession anymore. Dime a dozen. He is Dr. Dolin—hands shake and he has a deep smoker’s cough.
Cini? She wants to be a pilot (Eran’s love of flying). This isn’t worthwhile anymore. Older men vs. older women. Voyeur of older man at bucks: Jake’s tall, his head well-formed; his hair graying but thick, except for the front of his forehead, which is thinning gracefully (professionally, eloquently?). He’s fit and his uniform fits well. His nose is rounded in front and his ears prominent but not large, especially for a man whose ears have been growing for 60 years. He has a mole on the side of his nose. His eyebrows are two shades of gray: dark gray and bushy, with a shock of white in the middle. They draw attention to his reflective brown eyes. He speaks with a slight accent, perhaps Russian.
Advice not to join the navy; Jake’s hands are shaky; there used to be something for us; retiring next month. Changes in the navy more conservative; cutting costs and pay; more danger and less protection from pirates. Foreshadow the attack; don’t worry about the choice; the characters are the interesting part until the attack.
Today is another lazy day in Seattle. I had hoped to continue Lucille, but I’m going to put it off again. I did write a few pages in my Moleskine about where I see the story heading; I’ll transcribe those later. For now, I’m relaxing in front of my fire and watching the making of portion of “The Return of the King,” Peter Jackson’s vision of J. R. R. Tolkien’s (overrated) Lord of the Rings.
I’m not sure if this entry even should count as an entry. I spent much of today working on the new sewcrates.com. I’m happy with the progress, and I’m hopeful I’ll finish it soon. Most of the user functionality is there. I have to finish the administrative stuff, and then make the switcheroonie. I’m still looking for the perfect masthead and having little luck. I have a simple design now with no masthead, but I think it’s too simple.
Okay, I’ll stop reaching to say something. I’ll leave you with my notes and thoughts on my story. It’s becoming clearer, but until I write it, it will never be clear.
Notes on Lucille: Search of pathetic-ness? Life has given Jake a way to get out gloriously—is that it? No, Cini is making the choice; it’s her, the young woman, who think she’s going to change the world that wants to run or fight. “We’re fighting against a nothing. What chance have we?” Jake will say. Young, ambitious vs. old and cynical. Who wins?
Pirates are a nothing—there’s nobody in the pirate ship—it’s like a ‘ghost ship’ but in the literal sense. How do they win? Useless details. The dilemma? The decline of the gov’t, the loss of control. “We’re witnessing the decline of our civilization,” Jake will tell Cini. Do people inside a civilization, can they see the downfall? The wise ones—the Jakes of the world who witnessed the might of the Navy—he didn’t witness, he heard about it and grew up believing in its glory.
That’s a lot of exposition to get across through talking. Flashback time. Might of the armada; Jake was there, a junior officer—need a story.
Cini wants to fight the ghost pirate ship because she doesn’t believe the navy and their civilization is declining. Flashback: the last great battle or the beginnings of the end? The last flex of muscle trying to keep the solar system together. “It’s the only way to protect our interest and people.”
Why are the ghost ships piloted by computers but not Jake’s ship? Cheap answer: robot war. Igh. Robot ships are sent out on short journeys—w/in radio distance—autonomous robots can’t handle further distances? Flow of computers—just don’t trust computers for these flights. Where are they going? Delivery, transport, cruise (which could explain why not just robots—transporting people); there has to be people on board, which will make Cini’s choice much harder. Why would she risk them? Missing something!
Story idea: raising chickens in a city to teach children morals about food
Writing is not about superficial cleverness.
Okay, in my evolution to find a style that will let me write stories that span more than one day, I’m experimenting with my crap draft. Instead of writing paragraphs that make sense, I’ve decided to write thoughts and snippets of conversation and text. They’re not fully formed or in a readable format, but they’re the first step in my writing process. I usually aggravate over these paragraphs and with a sharp knife and extra words, I change them into readable and almost story-worthy words. I’m going to save myself the aggravation today, and post what I have.
I’ve warned you of bad writing before, but what you’re going to see, if you don’t press the back button now, which I highly recommend, is crap. Had I any ego, I wouldn’t post it. But, as should be apparent if you’ve read some of my other entries, I enjoy bad writing.
Story Idea: With technology replacing people in jobs, only one job will remain for people: creation—the sharing of their creative self. That is until technology gobbles that as well.
Story Idea: There are three garbage cans, one after the other. The closest one is full. Watch as three people walk over to the cans and decide whether to put their garbage in the full can, or one of the further cans. Talk about fascinating and interesting!
Quotation by Laurie Anderson, as spoken to NY Times Magazine, 30 January 2005: “A schlump is someone who doesn’t care about anything and who is just protecting their own turf, which is getting smaller and more meaningless, and then they disappear.” “I’m more worried about turning into a schlump than into a prune.”
And now onto my useless notes and dialogue.
Notes: Philosophical discussion of decline. Apathy is the first symptom. Conflict disappears, weakness. Jake is the one who sees this. Cini is of the new generation, the one that grew up without conflict in their life. She’s apathetic, she does her job, but doesn’t love doing it. She’s robotic and disinterested. So, why does she do it?
Following this through, Jake proves the point. He’s not going to retire without a pension—there are no pensions. He’s retiring according to the regulations, but they’re not enforcing them. There is no disagreement. If he wanted to stay on, he could. No one would argue. People do their jobs, but they use minimal efforts. It’s a depressed time.
When the ghost ship arrives, Jake decides to break with routine; he goes against the regulations and engages the PSS Lucille in a conflict with the pirate ship.
***
“The navy wasn’t always like this,” Jake said. “There was a time when we were the envy of the world. Where kings would come to us and kneel, saying, ‘you bow to no man.’ Those were the days, my friend. Those were the days.”
Silence. Cini returned to reviewing the trajectory response, and Jake checked his messages. “The world is changing. You wouldn’t know what it was like before, but it was different.
“Do you think the people inside a civilization—do you think they know when it’s in decline?”
“What are you talking about, Captain?”
“Our civilization, Cini. Our people. We’ve changed over the years. We used to fight, we used to worry about things, important things to some, frivolous things to others, but at least people thought about the things. We even argued—we argued in the congresses, the governments, even the navy had arguments. Today, we accept things and it’s considered bad manners to discuss things that might descend into an argument. When did that happen, Cini?”
“It’s for the good. We used to spend such a large part of our life arguing amongst ourselves. I’ve seen those holovisions. There was conflict and hatred and disagreement. People weren’t civilized. What we have today, Captain, is civilization. I would never want to return to those dark ages.”
Jake sighed quietly. He remembered when the younger generation had been rebellious. He grew up rebellious, and if he hadn’t joined the navy, the rebellion would have spilled over to his adult life. Conflict was on the way out even when Jake was as a child. There had been too many wars, too much death. People lost their taste for violence in any form. They called it a golden age, an enlightened age. They had many names for it. Who were they? Jake had to think about that. He wasn’t sure who they were. It was everyone, he supposed. The commentators, the media, the government, everyone had the same epiphany seemingly at the same time. Conflict was out of fashion. There were no more disagreements. You did things and they were judged, but you didn’t worry about what people thought about them.
The alert sounded. Cini’s posture straightened and her fingers danced along her control. “An unidentified ship has matched our trajectory and is approaching us from behind. Attempting to hail it.”
Jake pulled up the visual display and the ship appeared. It was a large, gray battle cruiser, much smaller than Lucille, but traveling toward them at a high rate. The ship was dark, except for the blue plasma from the engines, no lights could be seen in the ports. Jake feared it was a ghost ship.
“No response. The unidentified ship is firing its maneuvering rockets and pulling into our trajectory.”
“Pirates?”
“It’s too early to speculate, but there’s a good chance, Captain.”
“Radio our situation to Earth.”
“The ship is jamming our transmissions. We’re receiving a response.”
An empty control room appeared on the holovision. “This is Ghost Ship Program version 15.43. We have initiated sub-program 4.78a. Please comply with the published specifications. The counter has begun and you have nineteen point twenty nine minutes to respond. This transmission will repeat every nine minutes until compliance or detonation.”
“Transmission ended, Captain. I’ve pulled up the specification and the accepted response criteria. Shall I begin compliance?”
“Hold a second, Cini. Have you scanned the ghost ship for signs of life or explosives?”
“That’s not part of the procedures. They want the cargo—we give them our cargo, and we go on our way. This is a solid response to the conflict, Captain. We’ve done it this way for the past five years. It’s an accepted risk.”
“How do we even know that this is a ghost ship? If people were onboard, they wouldn’t risk blowing up. If not, we can still comply with the procedures.”
“It’s a deviation, Captain. If we deviate from the established procedures, the program is set to execute. This is the way things are. I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
They weren’t pirates in the ancient sense of the word. The ghost ships began appearing five years before. The ships were maintained by the asteroid colonies on the outskirts of the solar system. After leaving the Solar Empire (have to think of something better than that), the colonies were able to subsist on their mining industries, but the Empire stopped buying from them, and the colonies became desperate. They hit upon the ghost ship idea after a few failed attempts at real piracy. Here was a completely automated, computer-controlled ship that didn’t mind blowing itself up when disobeyed. The colonies even published the procedures and source code for the ghost ship. The community contributed code to the ghost ship to make it more robust, and after its second year, it became a problem for the Empire. The Empire, but that time, didn’t want to worry about problems—conflict was already out of fashion. It set up procedures to pay off the colonies during ghost ship raids, and as long as its losses were acceptable, which they seemed to be, the Empire didn’t worry about it.
“We’re flying in a warship. For god’s sake, Cini, why do you think we have warships? You can’t think they built these Planetships for the cargo runs they now send us on. Look at the weaponry display.” Jake pushed the alert button and the weapons status display appeared. They built the PSS Lucille for one purpose: war. She had undergone many changes in the last three-hundred years, but her weaponry never changed. It was built too deeply into the Planetship’s systems.
Cini laughed at Jake. “You don’t understand, Captain. We’re beyond that now. We’ve ‘evolved.’ You should understand that better than most. You were there for the Plowshares War. We fought that war to end all wars, and we won. Davis Hesas, the last great thinker, he said it beautifully, “the way to change the universe is to remove all conflicts.” And that’s what we did. I grew up in a utopian society. Our civilization has reached that point, Captain, because we believed it was reachable. The era of the warship is gone.”
“Be careful, Cini. You’re treading close to a conflict.”
“That’s not a disagreement, Captain. That is the correct answer. Davis Hasis taught us that to avoid conflict, we must identify conflict and always have the right answer. That’s how you avoid it: you present the universally accepted correct answer. Just as if you asked me how fast this can flies, I will give you the right answer; if you ask me why don’t we fight anymore, I give you the correct answer.”
“You would have been a brilliant debater, Cini.”
I’ve drawn since childhood. I remember spending hours hunched over paper attempting to create. Sure, most of my creations were derivative and their quality questionable, but that wasn’t why I drew. I was attracted to drawing for the same reason I’m attracted to writing: I wanted to create. I didn’t understand this desire for many years. It wasn’t until law school that I was able to put it into words. Law school scared me because I feared my job after graduating would involve no creativity. This thought depressed me terribly, which was strange because I never consciously though about creating. I imagined myself pushing paper, and dotting the eyes and crossing the tees of the others creations. (Tangential remark: I found a spelling of the American alphabet—not sure about its accuracy—and thought I’d share it with you: “ay, bee, cee, dee, ee, eff, gee, aitch, eye, jay, kay, ell, em, en, oh, pea, queue, are, ess, tee, you, vee, double-you, ex, why, zee.”) Thankfully, there’s more to my job than that, but the opportunities for creativity is limited. That is why I spend much of my time away from work writing and trying to create something. (Here is where you’d usually see my self-deprecating comment about my failures as a writer. I’ll spare you it this time, but I wanted you to know that I was thinking about it.)
As a child, I didn’t consider myself serious about drawing. I guess that means I never expected to turn it into a career. For a few years, I thought about architecture, but that was more of an answer to a question that never occurred to me. What did I want to be? Except for fleeting thoughts about game programming, I never wanted to do anything. I didn’t understand the need for a career, and the question never occurred to me. It wasn’t until the end of college that I thought about it. I don’t think my thoughts were coherent, but I remember raising the question abstractly. I remember one incident in particular. I was a senior, eating lunch in the dining hall, and discussing my future with a philosophy graduate student. I was telling him about my issues (viz., complaining): I was graduating from college, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Should I go to law school, graduate school, work? Where should I live? Should I move home? Work was as an afterthought because I thought it was obvious I would continue with school. School was all I knew and anything else would require thought (this was before OT became an important part of my vocabulary). I remember the graduate student’s answer. He was short with long blonde hair. Philosophy students fall into two categories: very cool and very geeky. I leaned toward the geeky category, but he landed firmly in the cool category. He was the type that wore black and had answers to questions you didn’t even ask but would if you thought. He told me, “Man, you’re in a terribly exciting part of your life. You have all these choices in front of you. You shouldn’t be scared, you should embrace the opportunity. There are few times in life when there is so much available to you.” Not much help, I thought, but I’ve passed on his advice to many college students who were at the same point. They probably don’t understand it, as I didn’t understand it at the time, but he was right. I should have been thinking about the possibilities and my choices, instead of dreading thinking. I let life carry me instead of carrying life. I’m happy with where it brought me, but looking back, I would have preferred to be steering instead of just going for the ride. For example, I based my decision to go to law school on my famous (to my mind) line: “when in doubt go to law school.” But that’s another story.
Getting back to drawing, there were times during my childhood that I drew often. I bought art books, colored pencils, and copied pictures from magazines, comic books, and photographs. I filled sketchbooks with these doodles and pictures. I had a moderate talent for copying, a talent that I found terribly limiting. When I tried to venture into areas that were not copies, I drew poorly. What I thought at the time was that I couldn’t draw without copying. What I didn’t realize was that all drawing was copying. Good artists draw the same thing enough times until they don’t need the subject in front of them to copy it. They make changes to the copies, but most of the changes are derivative. The art and creativity comes from the combination of different copies and the changes made to the drawing, whether the changes relate to the medium (e.g., modern art) or subject. It took me a long time to understand modern art because I didn’t understand this concept. When I think about it, I realize how slow I have been about many topics that I thought I understood.
I peaked as a child artist while painting a mural with Shannon outside our freshman dorm. It was an Elmore painting based on Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman’s fantasy novels. The mural was huge. While I was quite good at the sketching part (we created a grid on the photocopy of the painting and sketched the painting based on the grid), it turned out my hand was not steady enough to paint. I could pick out the colors and give instructions on blending, but for detailed work, I was terrible. Luckily, Shannon’s hand was steady—he should be a famous surgeon by now, but that’s a different story—and he managed beautifully the detailed painting. I did apply the Bob Ross method to create the happy trees and happy hills because it didn’t require a steady hand. It took us a year to complete, and we stayed in our freshman dorm an extra year to gaze at its glory. I wish I had a good picture to show you, but the best I have is a blown up photograph Shannon took and donated to my art collection. I’ll scan it in one day. Supposedly, the mural is still on the wall, nicely framed and surrounded by linen wall coverings.
What does this have to do with anything? Like most of what I write, these are mostly thoughts I come up with during the day to fill space when I’m procrastinating story writing. There is a purpose to this discussion, however. I downloaded the Adobe’s (evil, evil company) Illustrator, and I’ve been playing with drawings the last couple of days. I really like the program. It’s a bit complicated, but the complications provide power. And the best part about it (at least for me) is that steady hands are not required. There are a few “freehand” drawing tools, but most of the power comes from the vector aspects, meaning anyone with a good eye for pictures can draw. You don’t need manual talents—you just need to be able to figure out what would look good, and then combine the tools until you get there. I haven’t produced any great pictures yet, but I did a few drawings, and today I’ve worked through the online tutorials. I’m hoping to experiment more over the next few days.
I’m hoping that I can use some of the drawings for the redesign of my website. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been struggling, and at Chuck’s prompting (after he tore apart my two initial designs), I’ve decided to invest effort in original drawings. I have no idea what those original drawings will look like, and how they will work with the design of the website, but those are unimportant details. I’ll post some of my artwork when I produce something worth posting—oh, wait, that’s not how I do things here. Here’s the first picture I drew with Illustrator. It doesn’t use any of the power of the program (besides the obvious gradient), but I created it, and therefore I must post it.
Now, so you don’t think I’m a complete slacker on my story, I did write one line:
“Lucille, don’t abandon me now.”
Fancy, huh.
It’s been a difficult day again. If you lived in Seattle, you wouldn’t know that the Groundhog saw his shadow. The temperature reached into the upper sixties under a cloudless sky. As often happens with changes in the weather (or air pressure or clocks or anything, really), I felt awful. I can’t blame it only on the weather. I woke up with a slight headache, which blossomed into a full run-for-the-covers-the-pantry-is-empty during a two-hour lunch meeting. Do you know that feeling where you’re sitting somewhere and feel like you’d give anything to crawl out of your own skin? When people say they are “bored to tears,” they usually don’t think about what they’re saying. I don’t use that cliché lightly. I have cried many times because of boredom, and today was no exception. As I leaned forward in my folding chair trying to drown out the monotonous drone of the voices, I was struck by terror. There are things I dislike, and there are things I hate. Listening to something that is not interesting, not educational, not challenging and not in any way useful for a long time is one of the things I hate.
But enough dwelling—well, actually that’s not enough dwelling. I wish I could continue dwelling because I don’t have anything much else to say. I didn’t do much creative thinking or planning for this entry. The last few days have been productive. Yesterday, for the first time in a while, I finished my entry before dinner and found myself wandering the castle, not quite sure what to do with myself.
I’ve spent the larger part of this evening watching the last hours of the making of The Return of the King’s. I enjoy bonus parts of the DVD to an extent that I’m embarrassed to admit. I don’t know what it is about watching creative people suffer and achieve, but I any DVD I own, I have at least watched the bonus parts, and probably listened to the commentary tracks. I think I feel that by watching, I will find inspiration or hints into my own creative activities. It hasn’t happened that way yet, but I’m always hopeful.
I’m afraid that’s all I have for today. Continuing to further my Lucille story by five words every day, here are today’s:
Cini had lips that disappeared when she smiled.
Jake needs a flashback. We have to know him for something other than what he is going to do during his fight with the ghost ship. I thought about flashing him back to a battle, the rings (as in Saturn’s rings) battle, but I don’t think that’s necessary. We already have one fight, there’s not much of a need for a second fight. This brings me back to the Empire’s decline. I want to relate this in. I want Jake, a young, idealistic officer, to confront this decline and understand it, at least at a subconscious level. If he understood it consciously, he probably wouldn’t have lasted as long in the navy.
Ah, but it is interesting if he understands it consciously, but makes the choice to stay with the navy. He wants to pilot planetships. There’s that love in him that you’ve seen in others. It’s his desire to pilot even though he knows he’s piloting for a corrupt and declining civilization. It’s his day job which is divorced from his philosophical understanding.
He is piloting dignitaries when he comes to these realizations. These are leaders of the empire, and perhaps one in particular. He’s a former pilot, like Jake,, and sits in the cockpit with Jake and the captain of the planetship. Jake is piloting as Cini does in the main part of the story. Is it going to be more discussions? Too many fucking discussions! All this exposition done through conversations. This is a character story; stop worrying about boring people and tell the story. Not everything has to involve the mugging of little old ladies to be interesting. It’s your love of the characters and the opportunity for choice that should excite the reader (or at least me, which is why I’m writing this—right, right?).
So Jake and the captain and the dignitary are discussing things. Well, Jake’s not discussing so much as editorializing as he listens in on the conversation. He answers the questions put to him, but makes the decision early to answer in a way that they expect to hear, as opposed to sharing what he feels. This is to protect his career, and he knows what a coward it makes him.
Who are the captain and dignitary? I’m not sure. What are they discussing, how does it arise to something that Jake can later use?
I could flash it back even further, returning to Jake’s childhood. How is this going to help you? The story returns to a more mundane basis. This is when planetships are first being built and the empire is stil at its peak. It’s going to decline, but Jake doesn’t know it yet.
I’m stpinning my wheels again. I’m thinking about giving up on this story and going back to my daily stories. I’m not happy about either decision. I want to create more output, but I also want to finish what I start. I’m struggling to find the basis for this story. I have the basics, but the world is so complicated and beyond me that I’m not sure I can pull it off. I need to read and vouyeur more. I’ve been neglecting the food I need to write. When things run around in my mind with nothing pushing or inspiring them, my stoires and writing turns flat. I need to relate what I write with what happens around me. I’m a derivative artist, in the best sense of the word.
I’m feeling the pull of distractions. My phone, in plane mode, begs to be played with, and I’m itching to open up my drawing program to see if I can sketch the idea I had for the sewcrates picture. I’m trying to resist but it’s difficult…
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t resist. I spent most of the flight sketching the mascot for sewcrates. I thought of him a few mornings ago: a silhouette of a guy leaning over a laptop computer with a fire burning in the background. Once I have a mascot, I figured the rest would flow. I’ll post the sketches to show you what I’m going for (I obviously still haven’t achieved it) when I return to Seattle. I’m spending the weekend with Julie (yeah!) and since I’m still using the old version of sewcrates, I can’t upload from here (just way until the new one is finished—sometimes this century).
It came to my attention that yesterday I misstated facts relating to sake. I admit that I did no research in coming up with those facts, and further admit that all the misstated facts were used to further my theory, and obtain “cleverness,” a state of writing in which the reader says (usually to themselves, but in the ultimate case to others who are around them when alone or in a crowded library), “boy, this guy is good. I didn’t see that coming. He’s really on to something; he must be, he’s terribly clever!” While I’d like to apologize for my improper use of facts, I won’t. I’ll stand by warm sake being warm because it hides the alcoholic taste, and cold sake being cold because it is pure and doesn’t need to hide behind the heat. While I do believe my job is to educate the less fortunate that read these musings, the reality is that few people read this, and even fewer expect to learn something. Therefore, I find myself free to make up facts that amuse me and further my ridiculous pursuits. As to the “academic” who reads my musings, he should stick to writing theses on the advantages of warm sake, and leave the impressing those who know nothing about Asian culture to people like me.
Speaking of ridiculous pursuits, I watched a biography on The Biography Channel on Arnold the Goverorator. Remember, I was in the OC this weekend, where my TV watching is allowed and even encouraged (we took many pictures of our sandy hike, which wasn’t terribly sandy nor hike-like, but we’re getting back into “exercising” slowly so as not to wound our tender bodies). The amazing thing about Arnold was his drive. He decided to become a movie star in America at a young age. It wasn’t until he saw a Mr. Olympian become a movie star (albeit a terribly unsuccessful one who starred in Hercules) that he figured out how to do it. His first step: become the best bodybuilder in the world. His next step: use his bodybuilding championships to rocket him to stardom. His plan was simple and beautiful. Here was a poor farmer’s son from Austria (his father was a local constable and not a farmer, but the narrator kept referring to Arnold as a poor farmer’s son, so who am I to argue?) with the true American dream.
How did Arnold accomplish it? Tenacity. I’ve complained lately about distractions and lost focus. I pull my mind in too many directions to accomplish much. Even when I’m writing, I find myself writing to get it over with instead of writing to accomplish something. Even now, as I sit in the airport waiting for my flight away from the wonderful Julies and back to rainy Seattle, distractions tempt me. The Super Bowl (not sure if that’s one word or two words, which is how little I know or care about it) is on the television at the bar; and a family begs me to watch them. They’re interesting, but not voyeur interesting.
I’ll use the gym as an example of my motivation. There was a time when I went to the gym almost religiously. While in Houston, I discovered that I’m an external motivator for certain activities. I used to think that all my motivation was external, but I’m not as sure anymore. I can write these entries every day based on what is mostly an internal motivation. Sure, there are people out there rooting for me (and some ruing the day I decided to write every day, waiting in the wings for me to make a mistake and swoop down in glorious righteousness to exclaim my failures to the world), but I end up writing this for me. That other people read it helps me, but in the end, if it were about them, I wouldn’t write this every day. The gym was a different story. I liked how the gym made me look and feel, but I knew that I couldn’t do it myself. I could go there a few times a week, but my workouts, when done alone, were never sufficient. I would grow fatigued or bored or hit my disgustingly low pain threshold, and give up and go home. I paid a personal trainer to keep me going. I didn’t need their encouragement so much as their being there. I thought at first that it was either not wanting to fail in front of them, or how much I paid them for each session that kept me honest. But when I look back, it was more than that. I just needed a little push and a schedule. Or something like that.
When I moved to Seattle, I thought I’d be working out with a friend and neighbor. It worked in the beginning, but we’ve slowly gotten away from the gym. I’m not saying he’s unreliable so much as the two of us together are unreliable. I am as much to blame as him. Any excuse I found, I used to get out of the gym. To round out this example (well, it turned more into a tirade than an example, but stay with me here), I’m going to try this week to self-motivate myself to go to the gym. I’m not sure how well I’ll do or how long I’ll last, but because of NEQID, I have to try, otherwise what type of person would I be?
Here I am again, looking for ways of distracting myself to stop writing. McDonald’s is enticing me to break my vow against fast food, but I’m resisting, barely. A cheeseburger would be wonderful now. Julie and I went for sushi before I left, but the sashimi we ate left me hungry. There must not have been enough carbohydrates to keep me going. I will resist the evil call of fast food, but I wanted to remark on the toll that it exerts on me.
A young girl in a red jumpsuit and pink Puma-style sneakers is sitting on a chair across from me holding a bag of McDonald’s as a bum holds a brown-bagged liquor bottle. She’s munching away at the French fries, her front buckteeth biting each fry in half before she inhales the potato goodness.
Getting back to my original theme, I’ve begun to examine my wasted free time. I’ve asked myself the same question: how can I waste free time? Isn’t that the very nature of free time: it’s free, and anything you do during that time, including but not limited to playing video games and staring into space, doesn’t ruin the free time since by its very nature and definition it’s free? While all of that’s true, I think that every free moment I should be doing something that is (a) fun; (b) beneficial; or (c) contributing to NEQID. I should take an accounting of each day and look back at what I accomplished. Perhaps a list is in order. These are thoughts on a tiring flight.
Story idea: frustration and conflict. I used to love conflict, looking for any opportunity to unsheathe my sharpened knives and unleash them on unsuspecting persons. That has changed slowly over the years. I still don’t shy away from necessary conflicts, but, rather, I find great distaste and frustration in most conflicts. Listening to Julie’s friend discuss the trouble she’s having as a female surgery resident welled up in me a great unrelenting feeling of powerlessness and anger; or, in other words, frustration. I want to bottle and share that feeling with others through a story. I thought about fitting it in my current story, perhaps as Jake realizes the fall of his society but is powerless to do anything about it. But I’m not sure if that will work.
More interesting than the following silly words, I posted the pictures from this past weekend.
I’m still in bad form for this writing thing. Yesterday’s travels took a bit out of me and I’m recovering. I haven’t looked back at my entries for the last couple of weeks, but I have a feeling that if I did, they would lean toward filler. Creatively, I’m drained, and today will be more of the same. I jotted a few notes down during the flight yesterday that I’ll try to expand to fill at least a page before calling it a night.
I remember when I spoke about not wasting any more time; using my free time to better myself, or some such bullshit like that. While my words were rather weak, I was genuinely inspired by Arnold’s biography. Today is an example of why I’m incapable of that type of output. After a busy day of work, I feel there’s nothing in me for writing. Sure, I could have written before I watched more of Zoolander (a surprisingly good Ben Stiller movie), but distractions found me, and I’m not sure my output would have been much better before the relief of distractions.
My problem (one of many) is that I keep looking for the magic bullet that will allow me to write. I realize, of course, that there is no magic bullet, but I keep searching for it. I tell myself that if I find it, I’ll have all the energy and dedication I need. If only this were true. For the record, I didn’t make it to the gym today either. My dedication lasted up through the step of making it happen.
I’m still stuck on this story. I know I’m spending too much time thinking about it and not enough time writing it, but I can’t find a time where my energy and desire are both at high enough levels to write more of this story. What else is new? Staying with the decline of the city-state, I wanted to bring in the concept of how modern media has changed the way countries act. If you view how people in most democratic countries view wars, you begin to see a certain distaste of violence. (This is not a bad thing, just an observation.) The older the civilization, the greater the distaste. I can see the ends of this: a pacifist civilization that abhors violence. Taking that to the extreme, a civilization that is not willing to defend itself is in decline.
That’s what happens to Jake’s society. It’s why the ghost ships are paid off instead of fought against. Fighting and innocent deaths shock the people, and they’re willing to do much to appease the aggressors. That wasn’t my original idea. Let’s take a look at that twist: What if a civilization developed where people were not shocked by the killing of innocents. The treaties that govern most of the world’s “developed” countries state that the countries should not target innocents during warfare. But that wasn’t always the case. Look to the bombings in WWII, particularly of London and Hiroshima. Bombing innocents was part of war: if you weakened the infrastructure enough, people would not fight—or at least that was the theory, which failed in London but worked in Hiroshima.
A country (or civilization) that does not follow that rule has a certain advantage over a treaty-abiding civilization. It’s decadence in the form of aggression over a pacifist civilization. This brings to mind The Simpsons Halloween episode where Lisa wishes for there to be peace on earth and all of the people destroy all of their weapons. Two aliens land on the planet and with a pitchfork conquer earth. I’m making little sense today; don’t think I didn’t notice.
Story Idea: “I am the last lastname,” I said with the conceit of a young monster, sure in my own special-ness. “That is ridiculous,” my mother responded and went on to explain all the other lastnames in the world.
Theme: Difficulty of listening to others speak; embarrassment for them but not e.g., radio hosts.
My head cleared this morning. It wasn’t a PH day, but I was happy to awaken with my head relatively calm. I’ve been busy at work all day looking forward to my “free time” to sit down and write. My forced writing lately has been more a result of my tiredness and headaches than deficient desire. The tall mocha IV drip has started and I’m hoping it takes me somewhere interesting.
I finished writing for the day (the results come after this editorial comment). I once again failed to write any real part of the story. It’s becoming clearer, I think, which should be a good thing. I wish I knew whether any of this clarity will result in a real story. The following is a mishmash of notes for the story(ies).
Before I get started:
Things to Buy: On PRI, I heard that J.M. Coetze (a South African author and Nobel-prize winner I respect) learned to write novels by reading the notes of Samuel Becket.
Story Idea: (Not being able to make up story ideas; now they come too fast for me to write them all.) For immortality pill: what happens when the pill arrives, but it keeps people at their current age, i.e., old people stay old forever; another aspect to explore. What happens to the old people?
Random Notes on The PSS Lucille: (I really need a better title.)
The first story: Jake is a junior officer on a naval patrol vessel when it comes across a Generations Vessel, which has been traveling for thousands of years to reach this solar system. When it left, a treaty was reached between the then System Government to absorb the population in exchange for a quantity of metals that the Generations Vessel would transport. During those thousands of years, the System (perhaps corporations) found the metals and mined them from undiscovered (when the agreement was made) asteroids. There is now no need of the metals that the Generations Vessel carries.
A person’s life lasts hundreds of years (but they’re not immortal—that’s a different story). This is early in Jake’s career. How is the government at this time?
What is the response? Does the government order the navy to turn away the GV? This should be the start of the downward spiral of the System Government (and the society). They would have been falling earlier, but this is the first obvious symptom. (There probably should have been many governments, some System Governments, some individual planet or continent governments, during the solar system’s history. Many civilizations—but with new communication and library technologies, each new “society” builds on the old ones, so while there is a new government or society, it’s based strongly on the old one.) The SG refuses to…before I go there, why is the SG negotiating? I would rather get away form the idea of an Empire-style navy, and move more to a corporate navy. The libertarians dream: all industries, including military, have been privatized. The SG lays down the law, but the private military enforces the law.
Why have a central government at all? Free market—doesn’t work. The government has powers in the form of money. It taxes the people. How can they enforce the taxation? Through the private military. There is not one military, but many small ones. This allows the government to control all of them but having the threat of one against the other. Very complicated and risky. The militaries are based on geography—the ground forces are regional; the navy is quadrant based. This has evolved over many centuries.
Interesting corporate-based solar system. Yup. What about ethnicities? They still exist, but it’s less separate. Race is mostly outdated because of interbreeding. The only remnant is religions, which are making a comeback in this age. Why? The threats of terrorism—but that comes later, after the incident with the GV. The GV is what begins the terrorism. And eventually where Jake must make his choice (very vague).
I need to introduce a simple concept along with Jake during this first story. Main concepts: Planetships; Solar System governments (with no guidance from outside the system b/c of SOL issues); incoming Generations (containing people looking for a better life on a different planet or asteroid).
The Generations cause the problems. You have a balanced system with mature governments and populations, when a Generations arrives from another solar system. It might have traveled for hundreds or thousands of years to arrive. It has a huge population (hundreds of thousands to millions), and wants to share in the resources of the solar system.
***
(Jake wouldn’t be nervous—or would he? No. It’s you who would be nervous.)
Jake stood before the door leading to the bridge. He yanked on his white duty shirt to straighten it for the umpteenth time since dressing. This was his first day of duty on the PSS Lucille, his first assignment after graduating from flight school. He took a deep breath and opened the door.
“Lieutenant Jake *** reporting for duty, Captain.”
“You’re a few hours early, Lieutenant. The shift change isn’t until twenty-hundred hours.”
Jake glanced at his watch nervously.
***
Purpose of this story: introduce Jake. He needs to be outrageous. He’s the Captain Kirk of the story, but we’re catching him early in his career for the dying navy, which is part of the dying Empire. What is pulling the Empire apart?
I still don’t feel ready to start these stories. I don’t know what I’m waiting for…perhaps I need a better understanding of the world I’m creating. I also need to understand Jake. What makes him special? I have Jake. And I have the conflict. I also have his growth, or failure to be more specific (damn, this theme seems to follow through all my stories). He’s an intelligent risk taker. A trained foot soldier, who returns to the military to fly Planetships after fighting in ground wars for the Empire. (I need a better name than Empire.) He’s brilliant and lives his life according to principles. He thinks deeply and has “more original ideas than he knows what to do with.” His political sense is weak, but his strong ability to push his ideas, and the thoughtfulness of his ideas help him succeed.
He’s not overly eager; he thinks he knows what’s best for the navy and the Empire. He plays a political gambit late in his career in an attempt to save the Empire, but he loses. He might run for political office, or try to get the top naval job; that’s his downfall, and the story with Cini begins a few years after that, when he’s settled in as a Captain of the Planetship, broken. It’s Cini that pulls him out of his failure and he convinces him to act once more.
When talking to Jake, it was difficult to look into his eyes. The darted in all directions, never settled. Once his thought was finalized, his eyes would bore into you, imploring you to understand what he was saying. Few people did. His mind worked fast, and he lost confidence in people quickly when they fell behind. He would explain his thoughts when needed, but it became more of a lesson than an exchange.
He’s smart, why are people going to like him? People like clever but not intelligent. People will like him because he provides solutions. People like solutions. He doesn’t just say no.
Jake sleeps a few hours a night, forcing himself awake. He never talks about his time in the ground forces. He was there and he did things. He killed people and let forces in battle as a noncommissioned officer. He did what he thought best for his forces. Jake exercises every evening. He pushes himself because that’s what he’s always done.
What about his weaknesses?
Jake is impatient with people. He does not judge quickly, but when he comes to a conclusion, which is always well-thought out, he’s stubborn about it.
Flashback for Jake; time of war; Jake is commanding a warship; the peace movement of the gov’t decides to give in (appease) the threats, and demands he stand down, which puts his other naval ships at risk. The enemy (who is the enemy?) destroys the naval ships, which haunts Jake. He believes had he gone against his orders, he might have saved the ships. He starts as a man of peace who has complete faith in his gov’t and its pacifistic bent; and ends as a disheartened man, who realizes the decadence (and decline) of his gov’t. Did the appeasement bring about peace? Yes. In this case it did. Appeasement worked—why is he angry about it? He saved the lives of millions. Appeasement wasn’t necessary—the threat wasn’t grave. It was like Hitler during before WWII. Had the allies acted early enough, there would have been no war. At the time, had Jake continued forward, he could have turned the battle and perhaps won the war.
I’m starting to worry about the length of this story, and the amount I need to disclose. I need to get over this and start writing, thinking along the lines of short stories that begin to develop the world, ala Asimov’s early series. He wrote short stories that when combined formed a mostly coherent book. I’ll let the world develop in that way, returning to it to fill in details of Jake’s (I need a better last name than Mahahana or whatever I chose) life. The theme: depressing, life sucks and get used to it because you can’t change anything. Sound familiar with some of my other works?
First story with Jake…something simple that will introduce him. He’s a Planetship captain (or pilot). He’s somebody with an exciting life in a declining civilization. I want to introduce all of this. (If this is a longer set of stories, Jake will have to choose to do something amazing to save the society—otherwise there will be no pay out.)
I’ve realized that these words fall on the ears of family and friends. I’m okay with that. I never expected an army of readers. Looking at the latest statistics of blogs, there are tens if not hundreds of millions of bloggers writing their daily thoughts. Mine are no different. I splatter them on a blue page and believe it is for my own sanity that I do this. It’s a rather depressing thought.
Occasionally, someone actually reads these words. It’s usually a family member and they’re sometimes moved (a bit to the left, I’d imagine) by some of my words. As Julie likes to say, it’s like a little window where she can peek into my little head. I appreciate that I can say some of these things well. I don’t think I write much of value, but if you piece together my thirty-minute pieces, you begin to know me. Now, if only I was interesting, I’d really have something.
Of course, the real reason I write these musings is because I want to tell stories, and I’ve convinced myself that this is the first step. Well, not this part. This editorializing and musing about nothing, this isn’t the first step; it’s a first step toward the first step. My thought process was simple: if I sit down and write every day, eventually I’ll write story (like eat meat or sing song). Simple. It hasn’t happened exactly as planned. I’ve written a few stories, but they’ve been dull. After a reasonably good day yesterday, today was blah. I don’t have a headache, but I traded a clear head for low energy. As I mentioned a few days ago, I’m going to find a chunk of time where I am headache free and energy plenty. But that is not today.
I’m not expecting to have an epiphany writing this. I’m writing these words because in my blah state, these are all I’m thinking. I won’t try to bore you yet again with further thoughts on the story that wants to go nowhere and take its sweet time getting there.
Work has been sucking my creative juices. I’m enjoying what I do, but I find that when I’m done, I have little left. I’ve complained about this before. My mother suggested I save my writing for the weekends, since I usually have more to say then; or for when I travel, since then I always have more to say. That doesn’t help in my plan to be a better writer or write. This writing is fun. Notice the short sentences and small words. I’m rather proud of this uninteresting voice. Fun with small words. There, I’ve come up with the title. Now, I need to fill a few more paragraphs with fluff, and then I’ll call it a wasted day, at least on the writing front.
Maybe I should stop trying to tell stories. I’ve had this thought often. I wouldn’t stop writing, since I enjoy this writing thing; instead, I’d talk about something meaningful. Maybe make a difference in the world. World peace. Safe environment. Healthy whales. You know the important things. Who am I joking, that wouldn’t last. Instead, I’ll continue to suffer for my art, saying little and taking many words to tell you about how little I say.
I did write a few notes on that boring story before. As is my custom, I’ll share them. They’re as uninteresting as all the rest. Wake me when I tell a story. This other shit is boring the crap out of me.
Who is telling the story? A person from our time? A person from their time? There are two types of stories: the perspective is the difficult part. I want to share this wonderful world (which doesn’t exist) with the reader. But for them to understand it, the narrator needs to explain it so they would understand.
So many fucking questions and so little writing!
We meet Jake through his protégé, Cini. She’s starting her first day on a Planetship. Jake isn’t broken yet. He’s still optimistic that things will work out well. If it weren’t for the evil committees, they might. The failure to make decisions. The political doubletalk becomes the way of life. Nobody promises anything and nobody does anything. Pilots are not so much pilots and fixers. When something goes wrong, they need to be nearby in case a decision has to be made. A decision almost never has to be made, but what else would people do?
Starport Vandry. Even the name, Starport, was a misnomer. None of the Planetships that left from one hundred thirty miles above Zeitgeist left the solar system.