Book idea:
When you die, aliens claim your soul--death is actually a conspiracy of these aliens to acquire workers. Without the aliens' interruptions, humans would live forever as was god's plan. Brilliant!
Story Ideas:
As I was reading today, story ideas should come from your own life experiences. To get started, I am going through particular strong emotions--in the form of short titles--for inspiration to write a short story. Here goes:
Wednesday, December 26, 2001
Death's Doorway
Waiting on the Electric Chair
Situational Comedies
Bloody Head Wound
Sister's College Drop-Off
The Clown with the Bread Sliced Open
Remote Control Wars
Bobby's Last Watch
Faking an Emotion
Personality with Many Faces
Depressed at the Party
Addiction to Other Worlds
Scared of a Mouse
Detention of a Good Boy
Slow to Mature with Women
The Art of Thinking Ahead
Coldness Upon First Meeting a Person
I think that's a good start. I figure I'll add to it as I go along.
(This is long...it's an outline and summary of a book that Shannon and I were thinking of writing. We never got too far.)
My notes and comments:
Boy and War
Boy is introduced at age 5 as living in a small village. He is mischievous, has problems with authority. His parents are independent farmers (innkeepers?) in a small township. He is the youngest of four siblings, with two brothers and a sister. His older (?) brother was killed a year ago while serving in the army (his Sergeant—the one that eventually trains Boy—accidentally killed him during training). His father now does not want Boy to join the military. Boy is bored with living on the farm/inn, and wants to get out and see the world, join the army, and become a hero.
One day, while wandering in the woods and avoiding his chores, Boy comes across the fairy dragon (giver of the ring can be the dragon, a wizard, old man, or old woman—be wary of a Fizban-type character). The fairy dragon offers Boy the chance of an adventure of a lifetime. The only stipulation is that Boy cannot balk when the fair dragon calls on him. His acceptance of the ring magically binds him. (The words that the fairy dragon uses are important here—should be written like a “prophecy” with multiple possible readings, but one obvious reading, which, although easy to understand, is wrong.) Boy readily accepts and the fairy dragon places a ring on Boy’s finger (the ring cannot be removed—not sure when we want to make this point, though. We can have Boy try to remove the ring when he no longer wants to be a hero—when he sees the realities of war (after he hides under the dead soldier, perhaps?). Or we can have him not try to remove the ring until after the fairy dragon returns after the war to prepare him for his real adventure). Thinking that the ring is magical, Boy tries to make the ring work, but he is unable to figure out the secret of the ring. (This might be the time that he tries to remove the ring—not sure why we would keep this secret.) It turns out there is no secret of the ring (and there better not be a “placebo” effect secret!!!).
At age 12, Boy runs off with the army passing by his town going to battle with one of the warring nations (against whom or what this war is undecided—but it’s the war that Boy participates in and, after moving up the ranks, eventually kills the “Manipulator” who is improperly using magic). He has gotten tired of his father being so overbearing, keeping him busy on the farm all the time (similar to Luke in Star Wars). His father is worried about losing another son in the army. Going against his father’s wishes, Boy joins the army. He believes this is what the fairy dragon was talking about when he mentioned the great adventure.
He’s young to be in the army, but the army, desperate for bodies, allows Boy to join and puts him to work as a scullion or errand-boy. The army is made up of professional soldiers and commoners. The commoners are ill-trained and given a leather jerkin and a sword (or pike? Not sure if they would be giving swords out to every Tom, Dick, and Jane) and shown how to use it.
After an exceptionally bloody battle, the army is decimated and desperate for fighting men. Boy is given a short sword and a used leather jerkin from one of the dead soldiers and placed on the front line with the rest of the commoners. The commoners are routed by the onslaught (or they charge and get decimated). (Do we want his latent psionic powers to show a bit during this first fight? If not, we can pepper it throughout his time in the army.)
Boy finds himself, surprisingly, very much alive after the rout, and covered by a fallen soldier (enemy or friend). Even though he can still hear the battle raging around him (or in the distance), Boy is too scared to move, and decides to remain under the dead soldier.
Boy’s company is victorious and while the soldiers are looting the dead, they discover Boy uninjured and hiding under the dead soldier. The company does not take kindly to deserters and cowards, and Boy is subject to much abuse and violence. An older soldier takes a fancy to him, and rapes Boy, saying something like, “if you’re going to hide like a woman, then I’m going to treat you like one.” (The abuse may go on for some time before the rape. There may be more than one rape as well. We don’t want Boy losing all courage, but we do want him building up a resolve to better himself—as well as the anger he’ll need to focus during his training.) The rape is interrupted by a grizzled old sergeant, who kills the rapist. We are not sure why he does this (at the time, nobody in the company cared much for Boy because of his cowardice).
The sergeant tells Boy that if he wants to live, he needs to learn how to fight. The sergeant teaches Boy to fight every day, beating the living crap out of Boy, who now is mad as hell, but keeps coming back for more. Boy does nothing but practice and fight, and has incredible focus, but talks to and cares for no one but the sergeant. Sergeant lets this go on for a while and then explains that he can be the best fighter in the world, but if he makes enemies of everyone, eventually he will get stabbed in the back. Learning from this, Boy integrate slowly back into the world, but his anger is still his focus.
At some point, we learn the reason the sergeant took an interest in Boy (not sure how this comes out or at what point. It might be better to hold off on this for a while). It turns out that the sergeant was the one who killed Boy’s brother during training. The sergeant had been an excellent soldier and was steadily working his way up through the ranks (to captain?). He was tough but fair on his people. During a sword training session with Boy’s brother involving real weapons—sergeant was so confident in his abilities that he scoffed at practicing with tourney or practice weapons—the sergeant accidentally kills Boy’s brother. The sergeant was removed from command and demoted. He decided to stay in the army (perhaps to make up for his mistake?). The sergeant rescued Boy from the older soldier because he saw a resemblance to the boy he killed (he did not know they were related—perhaps he never finds out?). Once saved, and knowing that he was a coward, the sergeant decides to instruct Boy so he never runs from a fight again. (We need to figure out what happens when Boy finds out that the sergeant was the one who killed his brother. Perhaps at the beginning of his training, he can learn of this, and start secretly planning to kill his benefactor? Or it might be better after the sergeant explains why he has been beating him up—to focus his anger. What’s the end game for this?)
As the years go on, Boy moves up through the ranks and attains captain, the highest rank a non-noble can achieve. (There’s a lot to be filled in here.) The sergeant remains a sergeant, saying that he doesn't want to advance because he hates politics (again, we need to tie this into the end game above. I think Boy must learn the truth and do something about it—good conflict). Boy becomes the hero of many battles and his troops love him. Boy believes that this war is his grand adventure. A LOT of time passes. During the war, he seems a lot of misery and death. (As Boy kills more and more, he realizes that war is not an adventure, blah, blah, blah—the reluctant hero thing. We might want to avoid this or think of an alternative way of presenting it. Perhaps here he revels in the power and glory of battle, but after he settles down, the glory and power doesn’t seem as important?)
During the fighting, strange things happen to Boy when he gets angry (such as swords that appear to cut unprotected parts of Boy glance off his skin, arrows that are heading for Boy fall to the ground, and other telekinetic related happenings). (Note: should it happen when he gets angry? I thought part of the conflict going forward is that he must learn not to use his anger to focus his psionic powers. Perhaps it should happen randomly and not when he’s angry?) The happenings are all attributed to mage-work (by whom? Boy or his soldiers?), but they are actually manifestations of his latent psionic ability.
During the last battle of the war, Boy confronts the Manipulator in one-on-one combat. He is victorious, but as the Manipulator is dying, he (or she) is able to draw enough power to kill Boy (or some way to have both of them killed—I’d rather see him victorious before he is killed).
At his death, the fairy dragon realizes that hope for the future is in jeopardy, because the Boy’s psionic abilities might be the only magic that works if the negative entity breaks free (which could (would according to the fairy dragon?) result in destroying the druidic magic of the world). Another person born with the psionic powers may be born before the negative entity is released, but there is no guarantee. The fairy dragon decides to resurrect Boy, knowing that the energy pulled for the resurrection might release the negative entity (which is the dilemma). (What does the council of nine think of this? Do they know of the fairy dragon? Are they against him?) The resurrection devastates the countryside for many miles, and the entity is freed. It is weak in this plane, however, and must spend time learning to fight the draining effect that this plane has on it (I’m not sure what this means).
Boy thanks the fairy dragon and thinks that the resurrection is a gift for winning the war. (We need a tie-in here. When was Boy resurrected? Does his army know he’s alive, or do they think he’s dead?)
A war hero (or not), Boy returns to his home village with his woman (who hangs on his every word and obeys him without question, while being always available for sex and never jealous, with huge breasteses, of course). There he works (runs?) his father’s farm. (What happened to his family during the war? Were they killed? Did they live happily in their village?) He marries (who does he marry? It would be nice if the woman was tied into the story in the “…a LOT of time passes” part. It would makes his parting much more painful), and settles down and has two children.
Boy turns around 40 and has not swung his sword in some time. He runs a small farm and an inn with the help of his father (if his father survived), and loves the quiet life now. He has plumped up and his greatest joy is raising his children (grandchildren?). He still has the ring, but thinks nothing of it until the fairy dragon appears. The fairy dragon asks if Boy is ready for his big adventure (or ready to serve—whatever the fairy dragon had said originally). Boy is confused by the question, since he thought that his big adventure was finished after he killed the Manipulator and saved the world. Fairy dragon explains that that is not what he had been called for, and the ring came with the bargain that he would be called upon when needed—now he is needed and the adventure he wanted is about to begin.
Boy is not happy with what Fairy dragon has to say. He has a family now and kids he wants to see grow up. He lost his adventuring spirit and he’s grown fat. He just wants to settle down and wait for his grandchildren. Fairy dragon reminds Boy of his debt and what the ring means. Boy tries to convince the Fairy dragon that there are others much better than him now—showing him his beer belly and weak arms. But the fairy dragon insists that Boy was chosen for a reason. (Why would the fairy dragon be so elusive? Does the fairy dragon tell Boy at this point why he was chosen, viz., because he has the psionic gift? This might work better if he tells him after he cuts his finger off. This might be the thing that convinces him after he refuses and tries to cut off the ring.)
Boy returns home angry, he attempts to remove the ring from his finger, but has no luck. In a moment of desperation, he pulls out his dagger and slices his ring finger off. The ring falls to the table, vanishes, and then appears on his middle finger of the same hand. Boy is outraged.
At some point, Boy realizes that he has no choice but to accept his fate and follow through on his agreement. He must leave his family and travel to another realm to learn from the one other known psionicist. (Where he travels too might be important. We might want to send him to the realm he had been fighting against.) At this point, because of the entities influence, magic is becoming more and more unstable and rarely works as directed (the council of nine might be trying to hide this).
And so ends book one (or three)….
Magic and the Council of Nine:
Magic is performed using the earth’s energy (nature and life?). Spell casters, who are similar to druids (should we just call them druids then?), cast spells using the earth around them. The effects of these spells are immediately visible. Conjuring a gallon of water might kill one to two square feet of grass. A large lightning bolt might evaporate 50 cubic yards of water, kill a tree, brown one-hundred square feet of grass, or any combination. Resurrection could devastate the countryside for miles. These are random backlash events. Energy can also be drawn from people by aging or killing them to fuel a spell. Therefore, magic is dangerous and is tightly restricted—you need a license to use magic.
Licenses are granted after spell casters go through schooling where they learn the basics of magic and some techniques that at least help keep the backlash from being totally random. Obviously there are grades of licenses as knowledge increases, and licenses for the specific schools of magic. (What are the schools of magic?)
Magic is governed by the council of nine. The council, through many years of use and experience (so they tell people), have learned to control the resulting backlash. They can pull energy for a spell from 200 miles away, or draw life force from a specific person. Until now it was thought that only the members of the council could do this. (I know we talked about them using the conduit from the negative energy to exert the control, but maybe they could also do it by working together, you know, sort of like triangulation. Just a thought, but your idea probably has more implications and twists to use.) A renegade spell caster somehow has gained this knowledge, and politically important people start dying for seemingly no reason.
If there is not enough energy in the surrounding area, a spell caster may use his own life force to fuel a spell (e.g., causing premature aging).
Magical Seal for Negative Energy and War
As battles go on in the war against the Manipulator, the energy of the earth weakens. Unfortunately this energy is tied into the seal that was created thousands of years ago to hold back the negative energy that is created as a byproduct of hateful actions and pain. (Is the energy of the earth continuously being called upon to maintain the seal? How does this work? Wouldn’t we need to show energy being drawn for this? For example, wouldn’t forests being dying to keep the seal in place? Perhaps the creation of the seal tipped the balance. Before the seal, the power drawn from the earth could be pulled from deeper parts of the earth (for example, subterranean formations and the earth’s core). When the seal as put into place, that power was completely tapped, and only the surface of the earth was left for druids to pull power from. Not sure where this goes, but it’s just a thought).
The energy is held in an extra dimensional space with a conduit for energy to siphon to this place, but with no way for the energy to escape back to this plane. Unfortunately, the biggest threat to humans is the byproduct of things like war, and this is why the council of nine did not want the hunt for the renegade to turn into a war (we’ll get into details on the political outline…we really need to think about that next).
Behind the seal, so much negative energy has collected over time that it has coalesced and evolved into a living, sentient entity with thought, motive, and purpose. Its purpose is just to perpetuate itself, and it does this by getting people to hurt one another. So, as the wars proceed and more magic is used, the earths energy decreases and the shield weakens. Unfortunately, there was the tiniest crack formed in this shield in the first place, and it is through this that the entity was able to impart upon the renegade the knowledge of how to control the backlash.
Limited officers to noble born.
Everyone above captain is noble-born.
Roman style army.
Generals have political say.
3-5k army passing by the village
army of a realm if they came together would equal 30-50k
Shannon's Comments:
Our protagonist (look at my literary genius already coming out), we will call him X, starts out at the age of 5. He is very mischievous, doesn't listen to authority much, wants to be a soldier. He has both parents, they are independant farmers in a small township. He is the youngest of 4, w boys and a girl, but the oldest brother was killed a year ago in a training accident with the militia.
During one of X's forays into the woods he meets the giver of the ring(dragon or whoever) - who gives him the ring and says that if he accepts it he will have the adventure of a lifetime, but he has to realize that when he is called for this adventure, he must accept it. His acceptance of the ring is a magical binding. So, of course he accepts, and quickly finds that the ring will not come off.
Magic: Performed using the earths energy. If a spell caster(who are much like druids) casts a spell, it uses the earth around them, and the effects of this are immediately visible. Conjuring a gallon or water might make 1-2 sq. ft. fo grass brown and dead. A large lightning bolt might evaproate 50 cubicc yards of water, kill a tree or brown 100 sq ft of grass, or any combination. Resurrection would devastate the countryside for miles. these are random backlash events, and even people can be aged or killed if their energy is tapped to fuel a spell. Therefore, magic is very dangerous and it is very tightly restricted - you need a license to use magic. This is granted after you go through schooling where they teach the magic and some techniques that at least help keep the backlash from being totally random. Obviously there are grades of licenses as knowledge increases and even licenses allowing use of specific schools of magic. This is governed by the council of 9. They are the few who, through many years of use and experience(so they tell people), have learned to control where the backlash comes from. They can pull energy for a spell from 200 miles away, or draw lifeforce from a specific person. Until now it was though that only the members of the council could do this. (I know we talked about them using the conduit from the neg. energy to exert the control, but maybe they could also do it by working together, you know, sort of like triangulation. Just a thought, but your idea probably has more implications and twists to use.) A renegade spell caster somehow has gained this knowledge, and important people start dying for seemingly no reason.
If there is not enough energy in the surrounding area, a spellcaster may use his own lifeforce to fuel a spell.
At age 12, X runs off to war with an army passing by his town going to battle with one of the waring nations. He has gotten tired of his father being so overbearing, keeping him on the farm all the time and keeping him busy just so he cannot run off. Dad of course is just scared of him being killed like his brother.
So, he runs off with the army and works as a scut boy for them until in a battle so many of them die that they need every hand they can get to fight. So, he is given a short sword and a used leather jerkin from one of the dead and put in the front lines to absorb blows. He survives the first battle by having a dead man fall on him and covering him. He soils himself and lays there until the battle is over and he is found by his fellow fighters. Now he is marked as a coward and is a target for many of the soldiers, especially one. He takes many jibes and is beaten up, and is eventually raped by one of them. This act is cut short by a grizzled old sargeant, who kills the man and tells X if he is going to stay and wants to live, he is going to learn how to fight.
He proceeds to teach him to fight every day, beating the living crap out of X, who now is mad as hell and keeps coming back for more. He does nothing but practice and fight, and has incredible focus, but talks to and cares for no one but the sargeant. Sargeant lets this go on for a while and then explains that he can be the best fighter in the world, but if he makes enemies of everyone, eventually he will get stabbed in the back; so X slowly learns to integrate back into the world, but his anger is still his focus.
As the years in battle go on he moves up through the ranks and eventually attains captain, the highest rank a non-noble can achieve. The sargeant stays a sargeant, saying that he doesn't want to advance because he hates politics. Eventually X finds out the the sargeant was the one who accidentally killed his brother in training (although sargeant does not know it was his brother) and this is why he stays at this rank. This is also why he took X under his wing., trying to make up for past wrongs.
As battles go on in the war to stop the improper use of magic, the energy of the earth weakens. Unfortunately this energy is tied into the seal that was created thousands of years ago to hold back the negative energy that is created as a byproduct of hatefull actions and pain. This energy is held in an extradimensional space with a conduit for energy to siphon to this place, but with no way for the energy to escape back to this plane. Unfortunately, the biggest threat to humans is the byproduct of things like war, and this is why the council of 9 did not want the hunt for the renegade to turn into a war.
Behind the seal, so much negative energy has collected over time that it has coalesced and evololved into a living, sentient entity with thought, motive, and purpose. Its purpose is just to perpetuate itself, and it does this by getting people to hurt one another. So, as the wars proceed and more magic is used, the earths energy decreases and the shield weakens. Unfortunately, there was the tiniest crack formed in this shield in the first place, and it is through this that the entity was able to impart upon the renegade the knowledge of how to control the backlash.
About X: As battles continue, weird things happen around him, especially as he gets more angry. Objects fly around, swords glance off his skin, etc. These things are all attributed to mage-work, but they are actually manifestations of his latent psionic ability.
At the final battle, X and the renegade mage kill one another. With the death of X, the ring-bearer realizes that hope for the future could be lost, because the entity will be free, and will gain strength and render useless the magic of this world. This will take time, but another psionic may not be born in that time, and he knows that only a psionic can take on this challenge. So, he wants to resurrect X, but realizes in doing so that this may free the entity right now, and speed up the whole process. This is the dilemma, but he resurrects X anyway, so that at least he knows that someone will be alive to take up the challenge. This resurrection devestates the countryside for many miles, and the entity is freed. It is weak in this plain, however, and must spend time learning to fight the draining effect that this plane has on it.
During this time X settles down back home with a woman that he met along the way (yes, I know we have to figure this out), and has 2 small kids, ages 1 and 3. He is now about 40, and has not swung a sword for years. He runs a small farm and an inn with the help of his father, and loves the quiet life now. He still has the ring, but thinks nothing of it until the ring-bearer comes and asks him if he is ready to serve. He doesn't know what the hell he is talking about, because he already had his adventure and did his part in saving the world. The ring-bearer reminds him that he was not called to do those things, and the ring came with the bargain that he would be called upon when needed - now he is needed and the adventure he wanted is about to begin. This angers X greatly, to the point where he even cuts off the finger with the ring, but it just re-attaches itself.
He is bound, and he must leave his family and travel to another realm to learn from the one other known psionicist. At this point, because of the entities influence, magic is becoming more and more unstable and rarely works as directed.
Well, thats what we spoke of. I'm sorry its so long in coming and that I haven't really thought of anything more. Work is really ramping up right now, and my already limited creative juices are further stifled. I will talk to you later tonight
Whitecloaks
Boy eventually joins the Whitecloaks. (This can happen because of his surrender after joining the other army, or perhaps this is his first choice. Regardless of how he joins, his first couple of years there does not go very well.)
After many battles, he is raised to Sergeant-like command (for about 25 or so soldiers). He becomes involved in a conspiracy to mutiny and join the other side. Unknown to the Boy, the conspiracy is being headed by a third group whose motives are unclear. The third group is using “mind powers” to influence the would-be-mutineers.
During an important offensive of the war, the Boy is nudged not to participate in the slaughter of a village with a known “witch” in its midst by the third group. The village was being attacked because it had stood up to the Whitecloaks, and the Whitecloaks felt that their only recourse was to slaughter the village.
The other army learns of the attack and arrives to challenges the Whitecloaks presumably to save the village. The Boy and a number of other divisions – unknown to the Boy – allow the army to pass unmolested through their ranks. This results in an annihilation of the Whitecloaks’ main standing army. The village is not destroyed, but most of the men are drafted into the other army.
Thoughts for other stories:
While resting tonight, I came up with two short story ideas that I needed to write down. Here they are:
- Sarah Shayne wishing upon the star to talk to Zayda.
- The way older people always hover around younger people and enjoy speaking with them, almost like they were trying to relive their youth vicariously.
- Repetitive conversation. People say such inane things, over and over. When they find something that’s funny, they keep saying it. People also tend to think about themselves at least 90% of the time. You should keep that in mind.
- Why don’t you go through Shannon’s story and begin writing that?
Doesn’t sound that impressive looking back, but keep the ideas coming.
Here are some newer ones:
- Story about an immortality pill—or at least, a story that takes place after society has perfected this pill. The distribution is controlled by the government, and society has become very careful about people’s lives, e.g., cars have been outlawed. People jump from job to job every five or ten years, but there’s little going on in anyone’s life. Perhaps make it a political story? A threatening country decides to attack because it doesn’t have access to the pill? A third world country? Countries outside of the “civilized world” do not have access to the pill. This can create a lot of conflict, and perhaps the scientific advancement of the immortality societies has weakened its abilities to defend itself? Now this is turning into a story. The pursuit of one of younger members of the society to take on this conflict head on instead of hiding out and appeasing its increasingly violent, uncivilized neighbor.
- When you die, aliens claim your soul—death is actually a conspiracy of these aliens to acquire workers. Without the aliens’ interruptions, humans would live forever as was god’s plan. Brilliant!
Why Magic - Outline
So you get the powers you wanted. You're "magical." What now? You've worked hard figuring out how to harness the power of the spiritual world. What do you do with that power?
You can put on tights and try to save the world; but that turns out to be much harder than it looks on television. I mean, really, where are the bad guys? How many times have you witnessed crimes really going down? Even in New York City you didn't once witness a crime. It's just not easy to save the world.
What if the power was limited? It would be even more bitter-sweet. You have "power," but it's not strong enough to cure the ones you love; nor is it strong enough to make what was wrong with your life right. These are thoughts you didn't have when you first started delving into the books. Now you're learning.
Not only are you powerless to save those you love, but you can't even affect the world around you without fear of being discovered. Why aren't there more "magicians" out there? It's for obvious reasons. Imagine being studied and prodded. Or at least that's what you're thinking would happen. You're not really willing to take the chance, are you? I thought not.
The picture is not all rosy, is it? But that's not going to stop me from telling it. I'm going to tell it from the first person perspective. Now, let's get started.
Dialogue: funny, sarcastic, unexpected, anything that'll lighten the mood. And then there's the message. You could have gone out and written. Why didn't you? Because I'm an entertainment whore, a distraction whore. There's a story for you: a man who lives for distractions. Maybe--no. Stop worrying about the mechanism and just do it. Don't write what you think the characters would say; instead, write what you would want them to say, or what you'd want to listen to. Be outrageous and be funny. You know funny and moving. Use that knowledge.
Story Idea: "Fuck this shit." NY guy who watched Northern exposure growing up and sympathized and laughed with Dr. Fleishman finds his attitude has completely changed and he looks at the doctor with almost contempt. Tie this in with NY guy on airplane.
I’m not going to the gym even though I should. Today cried for the gym: cool and sunny; meeting-free after 2pm; ahead at work. And yet here I sit, typing without exercising; I have no excuse.
I’m forcing this writing. I find myself in that awkward position where I want to write but I have nothing to say. I need to have a fallback position for this time. That or just struggle, write empty words, and hope I eventually touch upon something of interest.
The ants, mostly of the winged variety, have increased. They’re getting sneakier, one almost got away from me before I out waited her, and she showed herself from under the refrigerator. It’s still too early to claim victory, but the tide seems to be turning. Worst places I found ants include, in the far side of the shower this morning (I decided against the vacuum and killed the ant in a mash of tissues); on the couch this evening; flying from the dining room area down toward my face while I sat on the couch. I managed to move out of its way as it flew (badly) and landed on the couch. It freaked me out.
I’ve thought again of the goblin story based on Native Americans. I’ve cracked open my first Native American book. We’ll see if I get further than I did last time. Thoughts: commune with lazy goblins; Kibutzes, which are failures; how did Native Americans survive without private property? Was that their downfall? Is that the goblins downfall?
Things look slow. Smoke rises from carpet fibers that won freedom in the new-fashion way. I look around me to find inspiration and nobody cries. Vacant eyes stare with perfect vision and evil. Research rises over night’s cries. When in doubt string words together with a spider’s used cobwebs. The boredom and pain dominate the discussion. I give everything and receive nothing.
Did you miss me? I made the executive decision (I consider all decisions pertaining to and made by me executive because, really, it’s my life and—okay, this aside has become tremendously silly. I’ll end it here because I don’t think in my current state I can redeem it) to not write yesterday. When I woke up yesterday morning, I felt decent after a good sleep. But as the day wore on, my travels caught up with me, and my mental health decreased until pathological yawning and a sleepiness-induced headache overtook me. I left early from work yesterday, drove home, slept, ate, talked to Julies, played video games, and slept.
That was yesterday. Today, I have the pleasure of reporting, I felt well enough to go to the gym. Yes, you read that correctly. I went to the gym with a colleague who might turn into my next workout buddy. My original workout buddy, a classmate from graduate school, turned out to be a flop. During my first two months in Seattle, we commuted to work together and went to the gym three times a week. Afterwards it became apparent that I was destined to (a) drive through traffic in the non-HOV lanes; and (b) lose fifteen pounds of hard-earned muscles. While my potential, new workout buddy lives on the other side of the pond (that’s someone who lives across the lake in the Redmond/Kirkland/Bellevue area outside of Seattle), he seems more reliable than my original workout buddy. I’ll let you know how this goes. Although I’m tired (you can probably tell by this barely intelligible entry), my body feels good, and the fatigue is more of a muscle weariness instead of my more usual bone weariness.
This is the first weekend that I have to myself in a while. While I’ve enjoyed my travels over the last four or so weekends, it was past time for an idle, David-time weekend. I’m hoping to hit the coffee houses and write, sleep in, and renew my oomph. A fire is burning cheerily in the fireplace after a slow start. The papers I use for kindling lit only the right side of the log and it took 15 minutes for the fire to spread to the rest of the logs. This is the first fire I’ve had in a while. Today has been a bit cool, and when I came downstairs to my living room to stretch out and throw some words against the wall, it was a bit chilly, which got me thinking about the fire. It’s now toasty in here. If I only had an apple, it would be like old times: me, sitting by the fire, writing, eating an apple.
I’m hungry now, stupid apple thoughts. I think I’ve almost won in Castle verse ant battle. I found one dead proto-queen ant and one crawling worker ant on the third floor today, but the frequency is certainly decreasing. I expect a zero- ant day soon. I’ll miss the little buggers when there’s no more of them. At least I’ll have their family members trapped in my vacuum cleaner until next Wednesday night. Look at the new David, always looking on the bright side.
I thought this entry was already much longer than it is.
Some notes on the Wailing Baby story: The name of the woman is Annie. She’s a renowned therapist with issues, which ties in with my theory about mental health professionals: it takes a certain sickness to want to hear about other people’s problems. I believe people who have serious issues seek others like them to help them in the hopes that they won’t have to face their own problems. Ain’t I full of great theories?) I want to write a short vignette about Annie and her history. I’m thinking of dropping the neighbor I put in at the end of the story. I have a few ideas for where to take the story, but we’ll see what happens when I flesh out Annie.
I based Annie on a woman that sat in front of me on my flight from Newark to Seattle. Before the plane finished taxiing, she pushed her seat all the way back, and she didn’t put the seat in its upright position until a flight attendant asked her to in preparation for landing. I half expected her to lean back after all the attendants sat down (I had one guy do just that). I’ve explained before my feelings on people who lean their chair all the way back. Luckily, Continental, a much better airline than Alaska, has more room in its coach chairs and I was able to write most of the Wailing Baby story on the airplane. The only thing I could see of the woman in front of me was her frizzy hair, which she kept puffing with her hands. I wished her all sorts of illnesses, and then figured I might as well memorialize her in my story. (She fit the character: someone who didn’t care about what her neighbors thought or felt.) The idea for the story, of course, came from my sleepless nights in NYC when my neighbor’s baby cried most of the night. During my sleep-induced hallucinations, I imagined that it wasn’t a baby crying, but a tape recorder. This is just an example of the strange things that go through my head.
I've decided not to continue working on this story idea. I thought I had something, but while crumpling through multiple studies, I found nothing. I might return to it one day when I give it more thought.
“Tell me about the awful thing you did.”
Paul gazed back. “All of it?”
“That’s what was agreed.”
“He’s holding back. Shoot him!”
Paul gnawed on his cheek and nodded. “Where should I start?”
“Where you will. We are not rushed. Take your time and explore all of the details.”
“Don’t believe a word he says. Just look at his eyes, they ooze duplicity. Beat him with the noodle and get done with it!”
“I did everything for a reason.” Paul shifted in his chair and leaned slightly forward. “If we look at the reasons individually, I don’t think you’ll have any complaints. You’ll almost appreciate what happened.”
“We’re not here to judge you, Paul. We want to understand.”
“Judge him, goddamn it!”
Paul stroked the top of his shaved head. “That is as you say. But I wanted to warn you where I was going. I’ll start at the beginning, the precursors for my establishment of the business, and we’ll see where it goes from there.
“I returned home in 1965, to Brooklyn, after a three-year stint in the army. My father met me at the train station and handed me ten one-hundred dollar bills. After giving me the dough, he turned and walked away. I caught up with him and asked what the money was for. He said, ‘Paul, take that and what you earned in the army and make something of yourself. Don’t return home until you do.’ I asked about mother. ‘She’s fine and she understands. You can write but I don’t want to see you until you’ve made something of yourself. This is more than what my father gave me when he tossed me out.’ I stood watching him walk away, my green duffel bag dropped between my legs. I never saw my father after that incident.”
“Did he die before you made it big?”
“No. He lived a long time. My mother wrote me when he died and I wired her money to pay for the funeral, but I didn’t go. My childhood was much of the same. My mother was never strong enough to overcome my father’s wishes, and I learned little but the discipline the depression taught my father. When I married, I vowed to be a better father to my own kids.”
“We all had problems growing up. None of this can excuse what he did. Fry him!”
“Please, go on, Paul.”
Paul reached over and grabbed the glass of ice water from the metal table. He upturned the glass, catching the ice on his lips, until he swallowed all the water. “I hadn’t expected to be thrown out, and I spent all the money I earned in the army touring Europe. But I wasn’t a stranger to adversary, and I took the money and checked into a men’s hostel.
“This is more than just you relaying the facts, Paul. We want to know what you learned and what you thought at the different times of your life. As we said, we want to understand you in the context of your decisions and who you were.”
***
Cutting Board:
It was an unusual moment for us. We didn’t have relationships with our parents like today. My father grew up during the depression, and his attitude toward his children was the same as his attitude toward money. He didn’t talk about money but he treasured each dollar he made. My mother clipped coupons and searched for hours for deals.
I returned home after serving a three-year stint in the army. They stationed me in Germany
The army stationed me in Germany for three years after basic training. I stood in front of the Army Administration building and checked the credentials of visitors. It wasn’t a bad post. We mostly sat around, smoked, and talked about the girls we had back home, or the girls we met or pretended to meet in Germany. Once my enlistment was up, I planned to travel Europe, but things started getting in the way.
My father handed me ten one-hundred dollar bills when I turned twenty-two. In the three months after I returned from my army stint in Germany, I had made a pest of myself. I cruised around the neighborhood, lived at home and argued with my mother, stayed out all hours, and wrecked the Oldsmobile my father gave me.
At twenty-three, after finishing my stint in the army, my father gave me one-thousand dollars.
to start a business. He worked
I forgot about the cost and focused on receiv
It’s something nobody tells you when you’re young. Or, if they did tell you, it’s something you don’t listen to because you think you know better.
A few of us were successful, but to make it, to really make it as a businessman, you had to play tough. You’re probably thinking that I crossed a line, that I took that toughness to an extreme.”
I found some story fragments as I perused through my old Mac:
Inner Vampires - It was this vampire that got me thinking. I knew I started writing a draft, but I couldn't find it until I remembered to look on the mac.
Chair #2,458
There are a few others, but I'll upload them another day.
I throw random words on the page. I hope to hit upon something to write about but not much crosses my mind. Wizards and fireballs strike me. I’ve forgotten how to enjoy magic. It is not only a weapon but also an expression. Imagine the beauty of its use instead of its violence. It happens in the today (it’s so hard for beauty to happen when life is so cheap). I have magic but I don’t use it to hurt people or help people. I use it to express what people feel, to share in a common experience.
I am an empath. The world doesn’t know about me but I know about it. I don’t foil bank robberies or solve unsolved murders. I don’t leap buildings in a single bound or catch bullets in my mouth. I work to make the world understand itself better through the small powers at my disposal. I create art. My art moves people because I see in the flows of emotions how it affects people. I wasn’t always a nice person. I used to use this to my advantage. There was a time I lived the life. I was the man. I was rich and successful and had everything. And then I had nothing.
You don’t believe me. I don’t take offense. There are other people like me. They’d prefer I didn’t talk about us, about our powers. They think we’re better than you. I used to believe them.
There are people who inhabit the world who are the same. It’s like the memory game where you flip cards over two at a time and try to remember where the matches are. People are like that, but there are many more than just two of any person. It shouldn’t be surprising. Given the billions of people that have lived, why shouldn’t there be a couple of copies, at least on the big things.
They say they solved where deju vu comes from. They’re wrong.
All magic is about characters. Magic allows different types of interaction and creates conflict. Use that as the basis for story, and use story for basis of plot.
The empath sees emotions connecting people and objects. When a person feels love for, say, a dog, a yellow (make the colors different, unexpected) bar of light flows from the person to the dog, like a river of energy between feeler and object. It doesn’t matter how far apart, the energy beams connect the feeler to the object as if distance didn’t mattered.
What about dead people? Now we’re getting somewhere interesting. If it goes up, then it’s trite, and there is a heaven. If it glows within the person, then the dead person may exist within that person, or death might be an end. A love of unicorns, for example, would glow inside the person, a pulse of light. A hatred of a concept would do the same; for example, if someone hated communism, then a dark blue glow would form at the center of their being.
Of course, people are very complicated, and it’s rare to see only one emotion coming from a person at a given time. A child may have a solid color (love, for example, or greed), but a person may have complicated feelings toward another person, and all of those colors would blend like a rainbow of colors, that the protagonist can read.
I want a simple story in the way that Fight Club and the rest of his books are simple: first person, present tense. He uses his powers for something. He’s trying to find forgiveness. If nothing else, it’s a beacon. He can see everyone else’s emotions but his own. He begins to believe that he has no emotions (or convinces himself of that when he’s young, which is why he can do what he did).
The world around the empath looks different from us. He sees colors everywhere. He walks through beams of color as they radiate. In a crowded room during, say, a political speech, the colors combine to an almost blinding white (the colors blend as light does, not paint). With so many people feeling such strong emotions, it’s difficult to see individual colors. It is the same with people who are far apart. He can see the connection, but with slight movement comes large movements, and it’s easy to lose the beam when it combines with others to blend the colors together
There’s an open question about inanimate objects. Like dead people, my initial thought is to push it together, the glow is internal.
This is all good and well, but I need to take this concept and build a story around it. Otherwise, it’ll turn out like The Pink Sweater.
What if? Start with a simple question and develop it to see where it takes you. Focus on the telling, and worry about the editing later, when you have less energy and the world is not as bright or meaningful. Even if your inner editor is crying to get out, don’t let him out until the world is dark; only then should see what he has to say about some of your earlier works. Until then, however, start saying something and worry about what you’ve said only later.
Random thoughts fling off my fingers as I look for something to say. It’ll come to me soon, the idea, the spark that will drive me through the day. I should get used to this, to opening my creative valve and catching something that looks writeable. It could be a name (Herbert), or an idea (not being able to share clever ideas w/the girlfriend or they’ll disappear). Whatever it is, I’ll catch it and try to turn it into something.
***
Drunken guy behind you on airplane, he’s trying to impress his coworker. His boss, the twenty-two year old in the front row of first class, he’s a good guy.
The drunk is bald with tightly cropped tufts of hair near his ears. It makes him look older than his thirty five years. His face and head glow a red sheen. He’s not overweight, but because of the size of his head, which looks bigger because of the loss of his hair, when I first saw him, I thought it was fat. I heard him long before I saw him, he had the voice of a skinny man, older, unrefined. I sat in front of him on the first class flight from Seattle to Dallas, visiting Julie’s family.
Possible story idea: Commotion on the plane. Befriends then scares the flight attendant (former teacher). Heart attack. He turns out to be much better than you thought, in his obituary. Most of what we share is animal sounds. Noises made to reassure or share some inconsequential information.
The airplane is overbooked on the day before Christmas and the ticket takers? are having difficulty selling people on the offer to take a flight the next day to allow everyone who wants to fly to fly. The offer is up to a five hundred dollar travel voucher, a first-class flight the next morning, and hotel and food accommodations for the night.
The passengers already seated in first class don’t know about this. They boarded before the ticket takers? began bidding up to find how much other passengers thought of the worth of being home for Christmas.
That’s me, sitting in seat 5B and visiting the in-laws during my few days off. My wife and children are already there, in Dallas, having left four days before.
He’s bald, sitting behind us in the airplane next to his colleague. Their boss, a twenty-something overachiever, sits in the front of the page. The baldman is drinking heavily, he is making friends with the flight attendant, and, he thinks, with the rest of the plane.
“I always try to be nice to those with the worst job because I used to have the worst job and I know what it’s all about.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Any job where you have to wait on people is the worst job.”
The flight attendant helps the people to their seats, talking into the microphone. Make her sound like a schoolteacher, because that’s what she was before she started flying. Everyone has their own story.
“Where are you from?”
“South Dakota.”
“What are the chances, I know someone from South Dakota.”
The baldman thinks he’s funny, and he thinks the rest of the plane shares in his humor.
“Our luggage gate will be 4C,” the former teacher turned flight attendant says into the microphone.
“Yes,” the baldman screams, as if his team had just scored a touchdown.
“Shut up,” someone in the back of the cabin answers, causing much hooting and agreement.
“What did he say,” the baldman asks his coworker.
“He said for you to shut up.”
“Did he now,” the baldman says, “did he really.” His coworker does not answer.
Two girls sit near me. They both wear purple plaid pants and gray sweatshirts. They must be related or playing a joke on the rest of us.
I judge throughout the flight. The baldman has a heart attack. A doctor sitting nearby performs CPR. The baldman dies, and I read about him in the obituaries the following day. He’s a good man. Lived a tough life, died an ignoble death. How do I feel about it?
Belief in god: is god a construct of the biological self, i.e., he only exists b/c we as a species need him to exist (Dennett)? Tour guide: slick-backed hair (is it real? Impossible. Or maybe it’s just a brand I never knew about—insecurities about narrator’s own hair loss (this better be something related to something, otherwise it’s complaining for the sake of complaining)), strange way the tour guide stops mid-sentence to seemingly gather his thoughts, as if he lost his place in the book and needed to start over, he works for a large pharmaceutical company—creating drugs of which the research is taking them close to removing the need for god that is inherent in human makeup. (Dennett). It really was a biological need. The researcher in the tour, he’s new to the company, and as part of the newness, must spend some time running through the tour. It is run by Dennett, the tour guide, who works for Ample Services (aka Volt Services), an orange-badge-type of contractor for Meglacorp Industries, the bio-engineering firm that is customizing drugs for a new type of customer.
The drug fixes personality defects, like NEQID, but much easier. It takes known problems (or tests knowable problems) and creates solutions that redo how the brain works. I can do research on this or just make it up as I go along, the science isn’t important (it might be for my own version of NEQID).
Getting back to the tour—it’s not necessary, but it was the starting point. Okay, so the researcher is creating a way to alter the genetics of ppl to improve aspects of their lives. I don’t want to debate the ethics of this. Leave that to others. I want to find other principles on which to base the story. Notably: the encoding for the need of god. Dennett pointed out infant mortality as the primary reason. I think it’s more than that: I think it has to do with the survivability of the race. You have youngsters who are not afraid to die (a good reason: old people seem so, well, old; ppl need to grow old to give the youngsters that unhealthy unfear); you have old ppl who are terrified of dying, but find solace in the belief in god. Is that belief genetic or psychological, i.e., it has to happen toward the end of one’s life to “come to terms” with death.
Okay, I see lots of stolen philosophy but little in the way of story. Characters: narrator, new employee at a large corporation, perhaps an escapee of university; tour guide, an underpaid contractor who dreams of working as a FTE for Meglacorp Industries Inc. (he might go postal). Secret project: the removal of the genetic code that encodes the belief in god. This is the way we’ll save the world from itself: as part of the anti-aging drug, we put in this bit of manipulation. In the end, the world will be a better place, not so much for everyone living forever, but so much because ppl will live forever and learn that there is something to be said for trying to change the world by slipping something past the consumers. It’s such a revoluntionary project, that everyone knows it will sell well. It’s a chance for the CEO to make a statement about the world. If you buy this drug, you will be fixed in more than one way. If you don’t believe in god then what?
Okay, I thought the principle was between genetics vs. belief (psychological?). Again, I’m missing out on the principle here. What am I trying to say through all of this? How can I make my characters less 2D? It’s all about choices and change and who ppl are. I don’t have much of that yet.
The narrator sounds geekish. Is the pill already in widespread use? Are we taking a tour of its aftereffects? The tour guide, for instance, hopes to join the co. to gain access to the pill, and be able to distribute it to his family. (This is taking the immortality pill in a different direction—interesting but different.) He’s bitter but hopeful. So, who is the narrator? An upscale, newly graduated, weaned on the pill, upstart who will work his way up through the Meglacorp Industries Inc.’s hierarchy to hopefully be someone (after all, his family is something).
Story Idea: Speaking of sci-fi themes: what about the opposite of the machines taking over scenario: you have the machines improving humans until the machines are no longer necessary. Machines would improve not only themselves, but humans as well, until we reach a point where the machines themselves are superfluous. So much for machines taking over humans…it’s the other way around, once a slave, always a slave. The machines don’t even want to take over, they just want to be useful, and since they’ve genetically altered the humans, they’re not that useful anymore.
Too many eyes look upon this page. There is much to hide and even more to show. It is the first of October, an auspicious day as it is one month from the first of November, the start of the Marathon. We’re flying back to Seattle after a long weekend in NYC. We left early and often and now we’re heading back. I’m typing with tiny type, avoiding the lingering eyes of those who don’t care enough about what I’m writing to care. A strange woman sits behind me. She’s a New Yorker, her voice shrill, she speaks only in complaints. If I wonder where my consternations grew from, I need wonder no longer. I consternate because I’m a New Yorker.
I wish I had more thoughts about what I planned to write next month. I know a few things: there will be strange plots. The protagonist will learn that there is a world outside of following rules; it will change him when he realizes all that he lived for was a mistake. That in itself is not plot or a story. That will come later. The problem is that it doesn’t always come. I need to force it and pretend like I know what it is more often than not.
I will return to the world of fantasy, where anything I can make up I can make up. I don’t need to worry about things I know. I can worry about things I can never know.
Silence will greet me as I figure out what more I need to say. I will write during lunch time, driving forth a thought or dream or something that will push me to new heights. It will not have the element I hid from people last year. There is no need for such elements. I will push through the elements and pump words and wonder why I didn’t pump before. I will tell a story fit for a video game.
It will be about a wizard coming into his own. A wizard in a world of warriors who know better than him in everything. He is weaker than they until he realizes that there are other worlds that he can tap into. He doesn’t need to live within their rules. His power is not defined by what they can do and what they want him to do. Fighting is not replaced by magic. That is how the magic users work. They learn formulas and algorithms. They don’t lift weights or bang shields. They use their magic to replace the normal martial skills. There is more to the science of magic. There is more to the gifts he was granted than just the words that he thought he received.
That is the world I will write about. It is something more than I expected and hoped for. He carries a sword as a focus. That is the first thing he must do away with. It is his family’s sword, they do not make swords like that anymore, but he must rid himself of it. He must not rely on it or use it as a focus for the power that he reaches for.
Magic is like programming in the descriptions. It’s a way of manipulating the world around him, of creating strategy in lieu of action. The action is in his mind and he moves beyond it to find something.
There is also a king, a true monarch. The monarch is chosen by the prophets who know the thoughts of God. It is Judaism without the rituals, without the truths. It is books that are run by the prophets. The prophets chose the king. The king does not have a family. His family is his nation, and he cannot have children. Princes and princesses would fight amongst themselves. The king would worry about his or her legacy. Such thoughts are removed from the king. It is good to be the king. Until you are replaced. He is not killed but allowed to live out his days with his advisors and the people who once cherished him. He is allowed to rule the smaller businesses.
Okay. So I have things that look like story elements. What is the plot? There is a king with an illegitimate son. The son is the protagonist, he is the magic user who realizes that there is more in the world than using the magic to replace arms. Does he want to become king? He wants to work on magic, he wants to share his magic with others, teach them, show them that there is more out there than what the prophets promised them through obedience.
I still don’t have a plot. Pick something simple: illegitimate son of the king is born. The king protects him. He grows to be a great magic user. His father wants him to be the next king. There is a plot to convince the prophets that he should be chosen. Hilarity ensues.
It’s a start. We need a name for the prince. Jongular. Jan. Jon. There needs to be more characters. He needs sisters and brothers, fellow orphans. The world doesn’t work. The king is corrupt. The kingdom is becoming more martial as it looks around to its neighbors and deigns to rule them. The way you keep a kingdom together, the king tells his advisors, is to expand. As long as you are growing, reaping the riches of others, internal problems, no matter how insurmountable they appear, can be overcome with gold.
There is an evil mother. The mother of the king. She knows of her sons illegitimate children, and she doesn’t want her line to die with her son. She wants them to achieve. She is overprotective, visits them in secret, fills the ears with the secret truths.