Ending this blog

I don't think I can combine the posts from this blog into my regular one, so just ending this blog. I don't post enough to either to justify having two. All nano, attempts as humour etc. posts will just be part of the normal blog.

Why I don't write epic fantasy: thoughts

For lack of anything useful to post (unless one wants many versions of some short stories :p), some genre thoughts. I don't mind reading epic fantasy -- up to a point. Series that go on forever bug me as a reader, so I thought about why and the answer proved quite simple: they're about world building.

World-building isn't bad (I've done it often enough myself) but if one is doing a series focused on one character or the typical Small Band, how many novels do you really need to tell their story? Not to show off your world or research of languages, but to tell the actual story. In most cases, I would lay down money that you actually don't need more than, say, a trilogy. There are exceptions -- always those -- but what end is it serving?

To me, the world is the framework. And it is important: you can't have a house without one. The materials matter. But after you build it, whatever is put inside, bought, decorates it and so forth is what is important. It's one reason I like writing modern fantasy: the framework is often there already, so I can focus more on the story proper.

storms

"Danny may not make hurricane strength: forecasters"

His parents will be very sad.That is all I have to say about that.

On dreams

I don't normally recall dreams, and those I do seldom make all that much sense. Last night's was just fun since I "woke" in an alternate version of my apartment and other places I've lived (as well as a kitchen I've never had*. I had a shower in the dream, figuring that would wake me up, and -- when that failed, and things got even stranger** -- logging on to a 4" compute in a sewing room. Which ran DOS 5.0. I still managed to contact people, one of ehich said: "Go outside" before the computer stopped working.

Which was the neat part: I'd been all "this is a dream, I can access the net and modern programs even if it is on DOS" all the while knowing I shouldn't be able to. Which led to the dream 'realizing' that and locking me out. Eventually I went outside to run into someone who had apparently made fun of me when I was six, and I now knew what he looked like so I could ask for an apology. Without, you know, getting his name or any idea what he did.

* The kitchen was all stainless steel appliances, counter tops etc and was "serial killer clean"
** My father as 50 lb overweight, coming in to fix the linen closet and casually noting a bees nest in it along with the a solid arm (and voice) of someone named Myra.

Here is a map of it, too:

Some older poetry

Been busy, so here is some older poetry (from 2004):

The universe is a balloon.

The universe is a balloon.
If we are lucky, it is a balloon animal.
Everything runs down. Entropy runs rampant.
The heat-death of the universe the final hot flash.
Watch the balloon. Breath, and it blows.
Let go, to fly where it may.
Created, it is already dying.
Set free, it may come back to Him, in worship.
And awe. And fear.
Who would create something that is dying
from the moment of its making?
Or does it have no worth, if it does not end,
is not let go to burn out and up and bright?
Perhaps. But analogy only takes us so far.

The universe was made by God, masturbating.
A lonely child in a bathroom scrawled with Enochian graffiti.
Each day a second, ripples of sperm falling into water.
The death and rebirth of the universe nothing
but a toilet flushing, water returning.
Over and over.
God never knew what He'd done.

And life? Spreading entropy far and wide,
energy burning up, trying to hold the death back
but no one can give and never take
and never hope for reward. And so
it is that life in the universe is nothing
more than a way to bring about the end.
Seven days creating? Ah! how long, then, to destroy?


The Suicide Boy

      For Goth Poetry Nite

They told us he came back
as a ghost, long after
Our class had gone out
to be devoured by the cruel world.

They hear him in the bathroom, sobbing:
saying no one loves him, no one
understood.

And he doesn't believe in God
or souls, and sobs insults
at people who offer experiential evidence
and show him a mirror.

Sometimes, Carrie style, a light bulb breaks
as he tries in vain to put his make up on,
hands floating through the too real world.

nanowrimo 2009

There were plans this year for it. I have forgotten what they were. (One of them turned into an abortive novel in several drafts.) What it shall be now is thanks to a prompt on a writing forum I'm a member of: YA fantasy dealing with separation & divorce. Which led me to think about Thomas The Rhymer, his missing seven years from the world and what that would do to his wife and kids left behind -- along with the fae child he fathers in his 3 nights in Elfland.

I don't know much about it yet -- I have no clue who the antagonist shall be (I'm half-certain there won't be one per se), but I have the cosmology done and 5 characters named in 2 days.

Janet & Thomas were easy, sine I lifted them from the poem. The demon girl Roh came about in the shower this morning and Pam, an older daughter of Janet's, popped into my head yesterday. Roh is odd, not a female name and simple, basic. Like demons in a lot of ways: she is one thing, a single note of a song. Pam can be short for Pamela and struck me as a very sensible name, which will be at odds with what she has done.

For the two male MCs, I knew one has to be Irish-ish (the fae) and be able to have a nickname. Thomas's son, no nickname and preferably English. Beyond that I went for the low end of the alphabet, random letters to start the names and emerged with Declan and Harris. Both work, so shall work on setting and plot at some point too...

music meme

The challenge: Put your MP3 player thingy on shuffle, and write down the first line of the first twenty songs. Post the poem that results.

And the result:

After the guns are silent
Where do we go from here;
When you're sad and when you're lonely?

I like a man who wears a lab coat when he works.
There are kids, lots of kids, who put the law inside a circle
Lost boys and golden girls.

Oh helen, you're a felon
All my books lay on the table

Angelina's got more kids:
He was just one more name in the story.

I'm hiding in the corner:
Sane men don't go mad all on their own -- oh no no.
What is evil? What is love?
We're the things that go bump in the night that you can't see.

If I could be a superhero
I sing the praise of honored wars of glory and of kings
Cultivate your hunger before you idealize.

Find me
I'm a man without a soul...Honey, yeah
If you're gonna get your heart broke, you better do it just right.

WIP fun

Oh, that was sad. I spent 2 minutes wondering, seriously, if one of the eventual antagonists of a WIP would wear briefs or boxers. To say nothing of considering sherry vs. beer in terms of beverage of choice. OTOH I did come across this

while looking for the proper VW for another character to drive.

novels via speech recognition

Here's the start of Chapter 25 of Roadside Attractions at the end of the World as interpreted by a speech recognition program/

chapter X. X. B. Because all the trees and are being

Yes "blues ball of strong and should winter wheat is quoting side. Use for those chemicals definitions you people's, genuine who breaks that you.
       the winter seven Jong stretching slowly and the looking around . "how?"
       "what?" Jesse look to brown we're only .
       "nothing. "he is more the peregrine trying to person . Your idea? "
       "he said it was small enough to avoid notice. And then you can pay. Can you? Could "
       winter grain . "probably." people all the weather over the holiday although this back home and, opening it, then put it back again. "enough for the meal. Good. " and
       "the very old is in question"
       " no no. It just means cronyism liable for below the place up a whole to I hope. All " feature wrong with the door. "I don't know any way."

Enjoy.

Another novel fragment

“You got a tattoo.”
       “There was also demons, the police, a fae --” I tried.
       “You got a tattoo.” She raised a hand, and for half a moment I thought she was going to slap me before she reached across the kitchen table and brushed some hair from my face, staring into my eyes. I tried not to squirm. “Show me.”
       I sighed and unwrapped the bandage on my left hand and showed her both palms. “They’re visible only if I want them to be.”
       “Because they're magical tattoos?” she said, but there was a tightness in her voice when she stared at my left hand.
       “How did you --?” I drew back and grandma blinked a few times.
       “I was joking. Or I thought I was,” she amended, then frowned and turned my left hand over, staring at my palm. “This?”
       I looked down and saw the faint outline of the tattoo glowing red. “Weird.” I concentrated and it faded away almost to nothing. “There. I guess using fire soon after getting this wasn’t the best idea.”
       “And it is?”
       “The new moon, the Eye of Horus -- closed -- and a phoenix reversed. It should basically make a framework for binding the angel and save me time and energy. It knows what I am, about the knife, and can probably seen the fire in me. I need another edge, or at least a moment of surprise.”
       She ran her fingers lightly over both palms, tickling my right a little in the process. “And it was worth it?”
       “Don’t know yet.” I pulled my hands away. “Probably not: it hurt a lot.”
       “You knew that going in.”
       It wasn’t a question but I nodded anyway. “I thought anything on my left hand would hurt a lot by default.”
       “You could have asked me.”
       “Would you have said yes?”
       Grandma was quiet for a few minutes, staring at my hands, then looked up and smiled wanly. “Probably not. But despite what you may have heard, it isn’t easier to get forgiveness than permission.”
       “Huh?”
       “It may seem easier, but you break a trust in doing so.”
       “Oh.”
       “And,” she added with a gentle smile, “sometimes when adults say no, it is for a good reason.”
       “‘People only grow to the extent they aren’t protected. Not by closing their hearts, but by the pieces they leave open.’” I quoted.
       She snorted. “Your father always was too poetic for his own good.”
       “You don’t grow if you’re sheltered. That’s what he meant. It’s not a bad thing to want to, but only for so long.”
       “Aiden. You’re only fifteen. You’re young enough to be wounded, yes, but are you old enough to heal?”
       Neither of us looked at my left hand. I smiled, or at least tried to. “I don’t know.”
       “I was young once, too. I took risks, did foolish things. All parents were children once, Aiden; as difficult as you might find it to believe, all grandparents were, too. I don’t know many things in this life, but I do know that we only grow by scar tissue, and most of us, if we had a choice, wouldn’t choose to grow at all.”
       “But --.”
       “Hush.” She took my hands in hers, lightly. “To be content in life, you need ignorance, Aiden. The world is full of evil and good, and I doubt either is stronger than the other, but it’s all too easy to see the evil. One act can make someone evil, but good is so many little things, all adding up in amounts so small we almost never measure them.”
       “Demons, grandma. They’re real, and they hate us. You want me to be ignorant of them and have the world end?”
       “No. But I think it would be better by far to be happy when the world ends than to be sad over your own life. Your parents had each other. They knew love. But you -- if you save the world and end up bitter, or sad, or lonely, what have you saved that was worth it?” She let go of my hands. “I don’t want your life to be like that, no matter the choices you make.”
       “But I’d save the world.”
       “I think it is generally better if our lives have meaning than that our deaths do,” she said dryly. “I’d rather you lived a full life, Aiden, and died in some random accident, than died a death in the cold and dark with no one to mourn, no one to attend your funeral.”
       “How many will attend yours?” slipped out before I could stop it.
       I stiffened, prepared for her to strike me this time, but to my surprise my grandmother laughed. “Oh, Aiden. Thank you.”
       “For what?”
       “Your parents would never have said that, never dreamed of it.”
       “I’m sorry --.”
       “Hush.” She raised a finger to my lips. “It was true. I am scared you will make the choice I made, Aiden. I’m an old lady who doesn’t even keep cats for company, who had no lover who remained, who made no friends I wasn’t too quick to renounce. But you are your parent’s son, too. And they could use people without hesitation if they had to, friend or not.” Son or not remained unspoken.
       “I don’t plan to.”
       “Of course you don’t. You’ll just let it happen, and pretend surprise when it’s over.”
       I scowled. “I’m not you. And I’m not them!”
       “I wish I could believe that.” She stood. “You don’t know how hard I wish that.”
       “I stood as well. “So, I’m being grounded or something?”
       “I think you’ve punished yourself enough. This time. But you can’t keep doing things like this. There are limits to how much a body can endure.”
       I said nothing.
       She began walking to the kitchen stairs, and turned and looked back. “You need to learn to bend, Aiden.”
       “I am an exorcist,” I said, holding her gaze. “We break before we bend.”
       And my grandmother stared at me for a long moment, mouth opening, but she closed it on whatever words she was going to say and turned out the light.
       I stood in the dark alone until she went upstairs so I could pretend I never heard her crying.