Sunday, August 21, 2011

facebook status updates: part V (Now including google+)

14%: The percentage of cattle used in McDonalds that have been previously abducted by aliens.

"What if there really IS a clue at the bottom of the bottle?" The Detective stared down into the glass. "How will I ever attempt to be sober after that?"

I have learned that the phrase 'shamanic elder porpoises' is funny in almost any context. (The context I used was crossing the origins of Tarzan with Aquaman)

Plot for a murder mystery: a serial killer who only targets people's pets. (The hate mail you'd get would be epic.)

There were many reasons to make Pacts with Beings from beyond time and space: Joe had wanted to be able to enter bars at the age of 16 and not be carded.
Every arthritic step is now a kind of victory.

A short story: Nothing happened. They lived quiet lives, and then they died. Like all tales never told, devoid of war and death and pathos, it was the only one truly worth telling.

I smile at her, or at least pretend to. "The truth always hurts. Otherwise it would be a lie."

"All true kings abdicate that throne, be it pop or or rock," he told the reporter, and his smile contained echoes of one of his oldest songs. "Otherwise we'd become gods, and why would anyone want to do that?"

"The rapture did happen in 1994." The old man smiled sadly. "I think 3 rather shocked cats were taken, and a lot of dogs. Strange the world hasn't changed much, isn't it?"

When the Messiah decided to form his own country-western band, the Church knew it was time to send out the death squad and start over. Again.

"Saying science hasn't figured everything out is fine and true as far as it goes, but it doesn't mean you get to fill in the gaps with whatever crap you want to," James said.

Fun bit from writing yesterday:
"I am rather good in sports, but that is just the luck of genetics more than real skill. Talent is often merely a defect of character, after all."

"Do you know what reincarnation MEANS?" He smiled, thin as a knife, eyes bright and dark. "It means this life doesn't matter. We have another, and another, and each time we move closer to our perfect life. I am killing them to help them. We all come back, all of us."

"The power in a relationship belongs to whoever cares the least. There is always going to be imbalance, one person who needs it more than the other, and thus is at the mercy of the other person. I considered it a kindness to break up now rather that hurt her further later."

Thought for the morning: is the book of revelation fanservice?

Her laugh was gentle, mocking. "I have given you all you ever wanted, old friend, old enemy. I have damned you with happiness, that you may see how empty it is." And then she bowed and vanished, leaving behind a world too perfect to be borne.

Like most serial killers, he started small. Not wanting to harm animals, he began unfriending people on facebook instead.

After the edict abolishing liars was passed, we hunted down the priests and their gods.

No one really knew what to make of the cat with the halo. The dogs laughed and laughed while the mice were outraged and demanded the cat be branded a heretic. Because mice remember what we forget.

Every time she told them she wrote fish porn, they asked if she had clammy fingers. Every. Single. Time. So no one was really surprised when she decided to filet them.

"What happpens," she pressed, "if we love ourselves too much? If it hurts too much to stop? What then?"
"Talkshows."

"And now, O Warrior of Light, having vanquished you I shall ... destroy the world!"
".... you will? Really?"
"I was not boasting, child of earth. I am the Lord of the Dark Realms and I have sworn that this world shall be no more!"
"Yes, yes, but then where will you go?"

"Wait, wait, wait: hellhounds exist and I brought one to the apartment?"
"Yes. It's mostly Bouvier. And," Jack added, raising a finger, "there is no need to shout."
"I'm not shouting."
"Really? You could have fooled me"

Rover looked up warily from the doorway, tail between his legs. The hellhound had yet to pee on the carpet from fear and I tried to take some deep, calming breaths that managed to be anything but calm. Jack didn't help by asking if we'd need to call in an exorcist if the dog crapped on the floor

Security questions on websites are so mundane. 'Favourite pet', 'Mother's maiden name' and such. (What if you never had a pet or you mom didn't have a maiden name?)
They should get creative. Like, 'Person who you most want to see on a Reality TV show in Rwanda' or 'Celebrity I want to see working at McDonalds'.

Monday's aren't bad for Garfield now, since the prozac was added to his food. John realized it was cheaper than all that lasagna.

Story Seed: Believing a house is haunted can knock up to a third from its price; so faking a haunting in a home is a great way to buy it at a reduced rate.

I stared down at the puppy and then up at Jack. "His name is Rover," I offered.
"Of course it is. You've never brought a found animal home before, though."
"The house he came from is gone. Burned right down past the foundations. For all I know the police would have blamed me."
"Ah." The boy raised a single eyebrow. "Did you do it?"
"What, burn a house down so I didn't have to return a found puppy?" I paused a beat. "I do it about once a week. Depends on the puppy."

It wasn't reading other people's minds that disturbed him. It was that he only ever did it during sex. No one ever told him, after, that they did as well, but he always wondered ...

"I wasn't joking. Witches exist, I hunt them down for a living."
He said nothing else as he picked up his drink again almost hesitantly.
"So one hurt you?" I tried.
"One of them cooked and ate my sister. I killed her, and later others because I found I was good at it. But at some point any calling, no matter how pure or noble, becomes a job if you do it long enough."

I am not near awake enough to check email and be informed that I have two days left before an exlusive offer of 500 'Rakuten Super Points' expires. Without bothering to trouble google over it, I figured best buy must be offering to make me into a japanese anime character.
Now to shout "Rakuten!" at work and see what it does....

the closet opened and Oprah stood on the other side, in full child-monster mode and offered me a free car.
"It's an import," she whispered and smiled, and each of her teeth contained a small Michael Moore screaming soundlessly.
.... and that is what my brain decided the MC of the august campnanowrimo had as part of a dream.

What google searches do you use to see if the government has put spyware on your computer?

Oddest thing in the nano thus far: a serial kidnapper.

"Of course I'm the good witch," she said, shocked. "Who else would offer magic enough to mend a heart?"

"Happy people never do anything important, Dad." Charlotte snapped. "Only unhappy people want change and are willing to do something to get it."

"I've killed a lot of witches and other people. Daniel. Some people think it makes me a monster, that I somehow never feel anything anymore."
"Killing doesn't make you a monster?"
"No. Being a monster does."

"We do take all kinds," the agent said. "But your resume ..."
"I introduced fire to man," the titan said.
"Mmm, quite: but not much work since then. The whole eagle and liver bit was good reality tv, but ratings declined sharply over the years."
"I am Prometheus. I lit the first phoenix, defied Olympus ...!"
"Yes, yes. Have you considered a career in stand-up?"

From WIP:
Charlotte cried softly during the night; I pretended not to hear her. Sometimes silence is all a parent can offer.

The children were surprised when they exited the wardrobe to find the camera crew waiting for them.
"Welcome to Survivor: Narnia," Jeff Probst said with a smile, his hair flowing back behind him like a mane.

Glorious Failure

Also known as 'Found'. My attempt to merge another novel's backstory into Found didn't work as well as intended. The story itself does work, up until the point where the characters go looking for the missing boy. Which means I pretty much need to jettison anything overtly weird/supernatural from the plot to get the story to work, I think. In an odd way, the story asks more of the main character than he was designed to deliver and runs into limitations of his character and personality quickly. Not a bad thing, necessarily, but it happens a little too often and allows the plot to become visible under the story.

Some parts works, I have some good lines for the next draft and I know what won't work at all. Which isn't at all bad for 50K in 19 days, especially when I set out to write it knowing that this draft might well fall apart as I tried to merge ideas together. I am pretty certain the next draft of Found is going to have Boy & Fox as not remotely part of it and will also see the Jack/Witches subplots get expunged as well, which is a bit of a pity as Jack is horribly fun to write.

But ultimately the more supernatural elements the story gets, the more it seems to cease working. So the next draft, when I write it, will be a very different beast indeed.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Transmissions

Before the operation
I used to show people my scars.
Then they put me under
fluorescent lighting and scalpels.
They did things in the light
no one would dream of doing in the dark.
Now I have nothing to show
when people ask me if I’m unique.
I try to tell them that I
am controlled by radio waves.
They tell me that everyone is
then giggle and titter to each other.
I tell them that I think
my father was an alien.
They become pseudointellectual
and pontificate about immigration acts.
No one understands
that I am being literal.
When I try to make them
they just quote from the X-Files.
If the truth is out there
Why do I have no scars to prove it?

Monday, August 08, 2011

8 days into camp....

And of last night, 20,000 words written. Still plotting entirely as I go along and no real clue how it all ends. The story has managed to surprise me in some respects and the first act is almost over as people prepare to enter the unruled kingdoms that lie between this world and another and bring back a rather confused kid. Whether he'll want to come back is, of course, something else altogether.

Monday, August 01, 2011

Fun absurdity....

So. I tried writing Found in July, only to have it die. This was not entirely a surprise, since I have 4+ treatments of it around (one of them having reached 60 pages) so I figured I should do it for august camp nano and damn well get a 'finished' version. In the process of writing, I had a bit of doggerel verse pop into my head to possibly use, that being 'we pay prices to be free'. Since I can never be sure such sudden bits aren't from, say, half-forgotten songs, I googled it. To find it came from a role-playing game called La Fin De Siecle. Which I ran in 2005. Said verse follows:

"I've been told I'm here to save the world
But yet I fear that I've been hurled
Into some strange game never knowing why.
So much is changing (I know the world may die).
I know that I have a prayer but no one ever answers.
Am I pawn or player, before the dance was there a dancer?

       I'm doing everything I can to bring about his fall
       But it feels like nothing I do can ever matter at all.
       He's the one and future king and his heart is bitter gall.
       And I have nothing left inside, nothing to call.

I feel so lost but I've been told that I can win
At what cost: everything I am, everything I've been?
It could all be gone maybe that reason enough to try
The sun at dawn reason enough to make reply
I don't know if I'm worthy (maybe I will when the battle's won)
And sometimes I'm filled with worry though it only has begun

       I'm doing everything I can to bring about his fall
       But it feels like nothing I do can ever matter at all.
       He's the one and future king and his heart is bitter gall.
       And I have nothing left inside, nothing to call.

I don't know if I'm worth this power I don't understand
It's been mine from birth and this was all planned
Long before I was born it was written in the stars
I'll come again ,be reborn, yet never lose my scars
I don't know if I can bear all these sacrifices for me:
Dead ghosts are staring and we pay prices to be free.

.... I cannot very well use int in Found, but it was odd to find again.