It's been a while since I posted.
I got little to no views on my writing, which is fair. Blogs are a terrible spot to tell a story when other tools exist, so no more of KotEI here. Lorcan and company will now live on story-based websites.
I'm heading into NaNoWriMo
and will be working on continuing my story with Molly Keating, "The Isthmus Gate." I've got it up on Wattpad and Fiction Press. Pick your poison. I'm presently re-posting the story with minor tweaks to get me to a starting point on Nov 1.
Wish me luck.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Friday, October 2, 2015
THE MONTH-LONG NOVELIST AGREEMENT AND STATEMENT OF UNDERSTANDING
I hereby pledge my intent to write a 50,000-word novel in one month’s time. By invoking an absurd, month-long deadline on such an enormous undertaking, I understand that notions of “craft,” “brilliance,” and “competency” are to be chucked right out the window, where they will remain, ignored, until they are retrieved for the editing process. I understand that I am a talented person, capable of heroic acts of creativity, and I will give myself enough time over the course of the next month to allow my innate gifts to come to the surface, unmolested by self-doubt, self-criticism, and other acts of self-bullying.
During the month ahead, I realize I will produce clunky dialogue, cliched characters, and deeply flawed plots. I agree that all of these things will be left in my rough draft, to be corrected and/or excised at a later point. I understand my right to withhold my manuscript from all readers until I deem it completed. I also acknowledge my right as author to substantially inflate both the quality of the rough draft and the rigors of the writing process should such inflation prove useful in garnering me respect and attention, or freedom from participation in onerous household chores.
I acknowledge that the month-long, 50,000-word deadline I set for myself is absolute and unchangeable, and that any failure to meet the deadline, or any effort on my part to move the deadline once the adventure has begun, will invite well-deserved mockery from friends and family. I also acknowledge that, upon successful completion of the stated noveling objective, I am entitled to a period of gleeful celebration and revelry, the duration and intensity of which may preclude me from participating fully in workplace activities for days, if not weeks, afterward.
Signed: Tim Nutting
Date: 02-Oct-15
Novel Start Date: 01-Nov-15
Novel Deadline: 30-Nov-15
__________________________________
This is the pledge shown on the NaNoWriMo Prep Page, here:
http://nanowrimo.org/nano-prep
And yes, I signed it. So there. Shut up, inner heckler.
During the month ahead, I realize I will produce clunky dialogue, cliched characters, and deeply flawed plots. I agree that all of these things will be left in my rough draft, to be corrected and/or excised at a later point. I understand my right to withhold my manuscript from all readers until I deem it completed. I also acknowledge my right as author to substantially inflate both the quality of the rough draft and the rigors of the writing process should such inflation prove useful in garnering me respect and attention, or freedom from participation in onerous household chores.
I acknowledge that the month-long, 50,000-word deadline I set for myself is absolute and unchangeable, and that any failure to meet the deadline, or any effort on my part to move the deadline once the adventure has begun, will invite well-deserved mockery from friends and family. I also acknowledge that, upon successful completion of the stated noveling objective, I am entitled to a period of gleeful celebration and revelry, the duration and intensity of which may preclude me from participating fully in workplace activities for days, if not weeks, afterward.
Signed: Tim Nutting
Date: 02-Oct-15
Novel Start Date: 01-Nov-15
Novel Deadline: 30-Nov-15
__________________________________
This is the pledge shown on the NaNoWriMo Prep Page, here:
http://nanowrimo.org/nano-prep
And yes, I signed it. So there. Shut up, inner heckler.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
NaNoWriMo 2015
It is upon us once more. National Novel Writing Month is here in 31 blindingly fast days. Of course I'm going to try it again. This time I will win. I need a story I can complete in 50,000 words, which is going to be a real challenge for me since I don't seem to get stories going below the 25,000 word mark.
I balked on Isthmus Gate because I didn't have the world building done yet. I chickened out on the Barsoomian Jephthah thing, but there's some impetus to go back to that. (It's one of my favorite Bible stories, full of outcasts who suddenly become useful to the powerful and has all the violence and war making you could want in a fantasy adventure.)
But maybe what I really want is this:
Now, conspiracy? Romance? Alien Invasion? All Three?
Hmmm...
I balked on Isthmus Gate because I didn't have the world building done yet. I chickened out on the Barsoomian Jephthah thing, but there's some impetus to go back to that. (It's one of my favorite Bible stories, full of outcasts who suddenly become useful to the powerful and has all the violence and war making you could want in a fantasy adventure.)
But maybe what I really want is this:
STARSHIP GENESISI more-or-less copied this from that TV show on Siffy (sorry, SyFy) "Ascension," which had a killer concept but betrays the whole set up 1/3 of the way through the story.
Humanity has survived the environmental and social catastrophes of the early 21st century. It was a narrow thing, but the move to send millions of humans into deep space to seed a distant star gave humanity enough breathing room to fix the problems.
The world is at peace, and more or less serene, but there is a secret. A long time ago, during the most tumultuous years of the changes that saved Earth and humanity, the ark ship Genesis learned that their generations-long quest would be a failure. Their home star was not suited for life. They chose to come home, and told Earth they were coming back.
That message was lost in the chaos, and now no one is listening to those channels.
But Genesis is almost home and a civilization of humans who were taught that Mother Earth was their destiny have come back to a world that can neither sustain them nor welcome them.
Now, conspiracy? Romance? Alien Invasion? All Three?
Hmmm...
Thursday, August 13, 2015
The Merchant of Venice
I consider myself reasonably read. It's very subjective. I do, however, like to joke that one doesn't really need to read the classics, one just needs to watch enough Star Trek.
Enough of this pseudo affiliation with the works of Shakespeare and others is sufficient to bluff most folks that you have actually studied classical literature. As always, one must remember to steer clear of folks who do actually know their shit.
Some examples?
Off the top of my head, Ricardo Montalban's Khan Noonian Singh jumps right out. As he lies dying at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (still one of the best Trek movies ever), he quotes Melville:
"To the last, I will grapple with thee... from Hell's heart, I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!"
Between that and "Call me Ishmael", it's an easy thing.
Lets travel back in time to the Original Series, next. Back to a time when they hadn't sorted it all out yet, when Vulcans were a conquered species (I suspect Amerind similarities), Romulans didn't exist, and Kirk grew up on a colony world, not in Iowa, and had survived a culling by a war criminal painted the likes of Goebbles. "The Conscience of the King" is a strange Trek episode these days, but the war criminal is an interstellar traveling Shakespeare troupe. Man I wish they'd stuck with those instead of space hippies two years later... Check it out.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: General Chang is a freakin' Shakespeare soundboard! I found out years later that Chris Plummer and Will Shatner used to actually do Shakespeare together. I wonder if they had as much fun as it looked like in outtakes. Along with Trek II, VI is one of my favorites. Yeah, everyone's long in the tooth, and there's some wacky, indeed idiotic antics, but it's so damned fun.
And Star Trek VI is where I found myself two nights ago, listening to the histrionic soundboard Klingon spinning in his chair, and I wondered about "Tickle us do we not laugh, prick us do we not bleed. Wrong us, shall we not revenge?"
Up to now, I'd never seen Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice. Sure, Much Ado About Nothing is hilarious (Whedon's version is a treat), Hamlet is the gold standard (Still like Gibson's, despite his bigoted idiocy), but this was one I'd never actually read.
YouTube can be great at turns, awful at other. I followed a Google link referencing my curious phrase and wound up watching the last part of the final act of the Michael Radford 2004 movie, beginning with the court scene with Antonio and Shylock, and felt my mouth falling farther and farther open. By the end I just wanted everyone in Antonio's association to die. I had this yawning hole in my chest as I watched the very spirit of justice be first be mauled by Shylock and then utterly perverted by Portia, and all through this I keep hearing the last echo of Shylock's monologue.
"If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute—and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."
Here it is.
I know this play has had multiple interpretations over the years, and scholars spend their entire lives poring over Shakespeare, and a lot of laypersons think it's all old and musty and dead, but that is so poignant.
I'm an apostate, and have committed the unforgivable sin of denying my so-called lord and savior, but I was raised a Christian, and we talked a good game, all of this stuff about vengeance being our god's purview. Yet, who but the meanest (meaning lowest, least) of us actually followed that tenant? Who among us does not long for the most vicious justice when we have been wronged?
So herein is a tale of revenge and hate and justice promised and denied, oaths broken and deception of the vilest sort. Yes, Shylock is wrong to attempt to kill Antonio in his rage, but Antonio is no hero! The man's a vicious bully. And yet he's also a man of denied love, who can't express his feelings for the man he loves. (And yes, especially in Radford's version, Antonio is in love with Bassanio.)
But the perversion of justice that Portia whips out on Shylock is jaw dropping. I couldn't fathom this. I wasn't sure what I was watching, jumping in at the end as I did. I wondered why the court was so easily bamboozled by these two cross-dressing women, and that led to a whole host of other "head-canon" rabbit holes for my thoughts to chase down.
But the sentencing...
I know the start of the story is this whole clever set up between Portia and Bassanio, and him winning her father's favor, and all of this play revolves around the disgusting bride price custom, and that's why Antonio cavalierly signs his bond as "a pound of flesh", but... The perversion of justice that Portia serves out to Shylock just feels like the Nazi kicking the concentration camp victim into the trench.
Yeah, I went full Godwin. Deal.
In the end, like all of Shakespeare, once you get into it and realize that it's all about people, and people never really change, it is vital and real and a whole bunch of flawed people pursuing their goals and trying to come out alive with just a little happiness. It's all of us. And it's a mirror on our society.
And I have a new ending for the play.
...And Portia and Bassanio choked on their wine that night and died.
The end.
Enough of this pseudo affiliation with the works of Shakespeare and others is sufficient to bluff most folks that you have actually studied classical literature. As always, one must remember to steer clear of folks who do actually know their shit.
Some examples?
Off the top of my head, Ricardo Montalban's Khan Noonian Singh jumps right out. As he lies dying at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (still one of the best Trek movies ever), he quotes Melville:
"To the last, I will grapple with thee... from Hell's heart, I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!"
Between that and "Call me Ishmael", it's an easy thing.
Lets travel back in time to the Original Series, next. Back to a time when they hadn't sorted it all out yet, when Vulcans were a conquered species (I suspect Amerind similarities), Romulans didn't exist, and Kirk grew up on a colony world, not in Iowa, and had survived a culling by a war criminal painted the likes of Goebbles. "The Conscience of the King" is a strange Trek episode these days, but the war criminal is an interstellar traveling Shakespeare troupe. Man I wish they'd stuck with those instead of space hippies two years later... Check it out.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: General Chang is a freakin' Shakespeare soundboard! I found out years later that Chris Plummer and Will Shatner used to actually do Shakespeare together. I wonder if they had as much fun as it looked like in outtakes. Along with Trek II, VI is one of my favorites. Yeah, everyone's long in the tooth, and there's some wacky, indeed idiotic antics, but it's so damned fun.
And Star Trek VI is where I found myself two nights ago, listening to the histrionic soundboard Klingon spinning in his chair, and I wondered about "Tickle us do we not laugh, prick us do we not bleed. Wrong us, shall we not revenge?"
Up to now, I'd never seen Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice. Sure, Much Ado About Nothing is hilarious (Whedon's version is a treat), Hamlet is the gold standard (Still like Gibson's, despite his bigoted idiocy), but this was one I'd never actually read.
YouTube can be great at turns, awful at other. I followed a Google link referencing my curious phrase and wound up watching the last part of the final act of the Michael Radford 2004 movie, beginning with the court scene with Antonio and Shylock, and felt my mouth falling farther and farther open. By the end I just wanted everyone in Antonio's association to die. I had this yawning hole in my chest as I watched the very spirit of justice be first be mauled by Shylock and then utterly perverted by Portia, and all through this I keep hearing the last echo of Shylock's monologue.
"If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute—and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."
Here it is.
I know this play has had multiple interpretations over the years, and scholars spend their entire lives poring over Shakespeare, and a lot of laypersons think it's all old and musty and dead, but that is so poignant.
I'm an apostate, and have committed the unforgivable sin of denying my so-called lord and savior, but I was raised a Christian, and we talked a good game, all of this stuff about vengeance being our god's purview. Yet, who but the meanest (meaning lowest, least) of us actually followed that tenant? Who among us does not long for the most vicious justice when we have been wronged?
So herein is a tale of revenge and hate and justice promised and denied, oaths broken and deception of the vilest sort. Yes, Shylock is wrong to attempt to kill Antonio in his rage, but Antonio is no hero! The man's a vicious bully. And yet he's also a man of denied love, who can't express his feelings for the man he loves. (And yes, especially in Radford's version, Antonio is in love with Bassanio.)
But the perversion of justice that Portia whips out on Shylock is jaw dropping. I couldn't fathom this. I wasn't sure what I was watching, jumping in at the end as I did. I wondered why the court was so easily bamboozled by these two cross-dressing women, and that led to a whole host of other "head-canon" rabbit holes for my thoughts to chase down.
But the sentencing...
I know the start of the story is this whole clever set up between Portia and Bassanio, and him winning her father's favor, and all of this play revolves around the disgusting bride price custom, and that's why Antonio cavalierly signs his bond as "a pound of flesh", but... The perversion of justice that Portia serves out to Shylock just feels like the Nazi kicking the concentration camp victim into the trench.
Yeah, I went full Godwin. Deal.
In the end, like all of Shakespeare, once you get into it and realize that it's all about people, and people never really change, it is vital and real and a whole bunch of flawed people pursuing their goals and trying to come out alive with just a little happiness. It's all of us. And it's a mirror on our society.
And I have a new ending for the play.
...And Portia and Bassanio choked on their wine that night and died.
The end.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Nerdtacular 2015
Wow.
I've been a member of the Frogpants community for a while now. I came into it via their most popular podcast, "The Instance", when I was playing World of Warcraft a lot more than I do now.
Since then I have become a regular consumer of several of the podcasts, notably "Film Sack", "The Morning Stream" (yeah, it is something of an unfortunate title), and "Comic Dorks" (which I think has sadly disappeared into the void). There are several more shows that should appeal to almost any variety of nerd out there. As new people come into the family of shows and old ones spin off into new ventures (but remain close), the shows continue to grow and change.
But the greatest thing about these shows is the people. From the celebrities to the newest fan, these are some of the coolest, most open, most welcoming people I've ever had the privilege to know.
Every year since 2009, Scott Johnson (host of many of the shows) and his family have put on an ever expanding group gathering in their home town, Salt Lake City, Utah, where they and as many of the networks hosts as possible come to hang out, talk, run panels, and share experiences/put on shows. This is the first year that I have attended.
Again, wow. The crew was amazing, the scenery was to die for (we held the convention at the Snowbird resort), the food was out of this world, the service phenomenal, and the people were amazing. I keep saying that because it 's true.
I've been to a few conventions. Thus far a few Trek cons put on by Creation, a couple of the Emerald City Comic Cons, and of course PAX Prime several times. I've never felt the same about any of those cons or their attendees. Each of those others still felt like a bunch of strangers crammed together in moderately polite groupings, but there was still an inherent standoffish feeling.
It certainly never helped that in each of these the event was so crammed that every single show or gathering you wanted to go to was crammed in a sweaty mass of humanity giving off a collective "ugh, leave me alone".
Not so with the Frogpants folks. I just couldn't help smiling while wandering the convention. EVERYONE was nice.
I missed a few shows I wanted to see, but caught many more that were just a blast.
I will link what I can as it comes up to YouTube.
Must. Go. Again!
I've been a member of the Frogpants community for a while now. I came into it via their most popular podcast, "The Instance", when I was playing World of Warcraft a lot more than I do now.
Since then I have become a regular consumer of several of the podcasts, notably "Film Sack", "The Morning Stream" (yeah, it is something of an unfortunate title), and "Comic Dorks" (which I think has sadly disappeared into the void). There are several more shows that should appeal to almost any variety of nerd out there. As new people come into the family of shows and old ones spin off into new ventures (but remain close), the shows continue to grow and change.
But the greatest thing about these shows is the people. From the celebrities to the newest fan, these are some of the coolest, most open, most welcoming people I've ever had the privilege to know.
Every year since 2009, Scott Johnson (host of many of the shows) and his family have put on an ever expanding group gathering in their home town, Salt Lake City, Utah, where they and as many of the networks hosts as possible come to hang out, talk, run panels, and share experiences/put on shows. This is the first year that I have attended.
Again, wow. The crew was amazing, the scenery was to die for (we held the convention at the Snowbird resort), the food was out of this world, the service phenomenal, and the people were amazing. I keep saying that because it 's true.
I've been to a few conventions. Thus far a few Trek cons put on by Creation, a couple of the Emerald City Comic Cons, and of course PAX Prime several times. I've never felt the same about any of those cons or their attendees. Each of those others still felt like a bunch of strangers crammed together in moderately polite groupings, but there was still an inherent standoffish feeling.
It certainly never helped that in each of these the event was so crammed that every single show or gathering you wanted to go to was crammed in a sweaty mass of humanity giving off a collective "ugh, leave me alone".
Not so with the Frogpants folks. I just couldn't help smiling while wandering the convention. EVERYONE was nice.
I missed a few shows I wanted to see, but caught many more that were just a blast.
I will link what I can as it comes up to YouTube.
Must. Go. Again!
Thursday, July 9, 2015
Clan of the Cave Bear
I was raised American Baptist. My church was part of the Northwest Convention. These words didn't mean much to me back then. In fact I spent a lot of the time wondering just what Baptist meant, and I gathered that a good deal of my fellow church members did as well. In fact the first time I really recall it meaning _anything_ was when a kid I was going to school with emphatically insisted that I had been baptized wrong and was going to go to Hell.
I remember having harsh words with this kid, and offering to baptize him in the hotel pool (we were on a band trip). Yeah, it wasn't a very forgiving thing to say, but if I'm being honest I was trying to save his immortal soul. And have a fight.
Sometimes I wish I could tell that me to actually read the damned Bible, see the shit in it for what it is, and realize that we were all picking and choosing whatever made us feel good.
Maybe a few years before this I was really getting into reading. I read a lot of books as a child and moving into middle school that number increased dramatically, and pretty soon I ran into the first real conflicts (that I noticed) between my parents' religion and the world I was growing up in. Now we were getting into radio stations I couldn't listen to (Hard Rock, the station was 99.9 which was 666 upside down), certain school friends I probably shouldn't hang out with as much (Mormons), and of course books I couldn't read.
The one I remember right now was Jean Auel's "Clan of the Cave Bear." This one had all the bad stuff. It had a serious treatment of cave men that existed well before the Bible, and we all knew Adam was the first man, so how could Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons actually have existed? It had graphic violence and a struggle between cultures. It had very graphic sex, and sex out of wedlock. Worst of all, the God of Abraham did not exist in this book, at all. (I remember my mom, whom I miss dearly, being upset, just a little, that I had a 'lord' in a piece of middle school creative fiction and it wasn't Jesus, Our Lord and Savior.) Later I would discover that Ms. Auel had angered scholars as well as preachers, especially when her book achieved the renown it did. But, there I was, thirteen or fourteen, and here was this popular book that was on the news and in discussion and REALLY disliked by the likes of the 700 club blowhards, so definitely I was not going to read this book. Nope. No siree.
Heh.
Come on. I was thirteen.
I had to.
But, I never managed to find a way to do that, not for a long time. It was always checked out. I didn't have money to go to a book store, especially one that didn't say "Christian" on the placard, and it certainly wasn't at school. And then we went on a retreat. For those of you who weren't raised in a church, a retreat is kind of like a big group camping experience. It usually has several chances to take Bible classes, and church services every day, but it's also a chance to unwind, have fun activities, and because we were Baptists, eat a lot of good food. I forgot to put that above. Baptists know how to cook. Just... wow. If you ever get invited to a Baptist cook out or pot luck, it's probably worth putting up with the proselytizing and swallowing your confrontational nature, because food. I miss that. That and the camaraderie.
Retreats... right. I think this was at a place called Rainbow Lodge. I don't remember a whole lot about it, except for the library in the lodge itself. There was a big fireplace and an atrium-like area with stairs running along one wall, I think. What's germane to the story I'm telling, though, is that in the middle of this retreat there was a copy of Clan of the Cave Bear in the middle of the library. Well now. When Mom said that I should find something to read, I know she didn't mean that, and didn't expect that I'd find this heathen tome there, but find it I did, and I sure did spend a lot of time reading on that retreat. I can't remember if I finished it there (I'm pretty sure not), and I can't remember how I did finish it, but I know I did.
As I got older I pushed more and more against those restrictions, and I think I make my Mom especially sound more "gasp! demons!" than she ever was, but in all honesty she was the one that convinced me that playing Dungeons and Dragons was searching out the Devil, and made my Dad take back the D&D Basic Set that he'd bought me for some event. Before I'd graduated my father and I had both devoured Dune and other similar books that were challenging to a certain fundamentalism.
I remember this event mostly because I just picked up Ms. Auel's 'Earth's Children' sequence of books on Audible. I had previously read 'The Mammoth Hunters' and I may have go to 'The Plains of Passage', but I don't remember much except the atlatl. They had a great sale going on, and I love me some good audiobooks. So far the performance is great, and the story is, by now, all new to me once more. But, there it is, as I listen I recall more and more.
Above all, what I recall is that I miss my mom. A lot. It's been over a year now. Still hurts. Screw telling the younger me about religion, I wish I could tell him to appreciate his mom a little more, pull his head out of his ass, pay more attention to the world around him and his relationships. We never appreciate what we have, in many ways, until it really is gone. Maybe that's part of the grieving process.
In other reading, "The Pyramids of London" by Andrea K. Höst was suggested to me. To be honest, the author was suggested emphatically, and this was the book I settled on to get to know her. So far it's quite good too. The world building is phenomenal, just enough information without overdoing it. I am also really enjoying this book. It really transcends its vampire and steampunk genres quite neatly, and I can't wait to learn more.
This may be a spoiler, but there is so much detail in the early part of "Pyramids..." it seems a shame that the rest of it doesn't take place where the narrative starts, but I consider that now to be Höst subverting expectations. You are given X, therefore this story must be Y, but no, guess what, it's Z. I do dig that a lot.
Currently Reading: "The Pyramids of London" by Andrea K. Höst (ebook), "The Clan of the Cave Bear" by Jean M. Auel (audiobook).
I remember having harsh words with this kid, and offering to baptize him in the hotel pool (we were on a band trip). Yeah, it wasn't a very forgiving thing to say, but if I'm being honest I was trying to save his immortal soul. And have a fight.
Sometimes I wish I could tell that me to actually read the damned Bible, see the shit in it for what it is, and realize that we were all picking and choosing whatever made us feel good.
Maybe a few years before this I was really getting into reading. I read a lot of books as a child and moving into middle school that number increased dramatically, and pretty soon I ran into the first real conflicts (that I noticed) between my parents' religion and the world I was growing up in. Now we were getting into radio stations I couldn't listen to (Hard Rock, the station was 99.9 which was 666 upside down), certain school friends I probably shouldn't hang out with as much (Mormons), and of course books I couldn't read.
The one I remember right now was Jean Auel's "Clan of the Cave Bear." This one had all the bad stuff. It had a serious treatment of cave men that existed well before the Bible, and we all knew Adam was the first man, so how could Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons actually have existed? It had graphic violence and a struggle between cultures. It had very graphic sex, and sex out of wedlock. Worst of all, the God of Abraham did not exist in this book, at all. (I remember my mom, whom I miss dearly, being upset, just a little, that I had a 'lord' in a piece of middle school creative fiction and it wasn't Jesus, Our Lord and Savior.) Later I would discover that Ms. Auel had angered scholars as well as preachers, especially when her book achieved the renown it did. But, there I was, thirteen or fourteen, and here was this popular book that was on the news and in discussion and REALLY disliked by the likes of the 700 club blowhards, so definitely I was not going to read this book. Nope. No siree.
Heh.
Come on. I was thirteen.
I had to.
But, I never managed to find a way to do that, not for a long time. It was always checked out. I didn't have money to go to a book store, especially one that didn't say "Christian" on the placard, and it certainly wasn't at school. And then we went on a retreat. For those of you who weren't raised in a church, a retreat is kind of like a big group camping experience. It usually has several chances to take Bible classes, and church services every day, but it's also a chance to unwind, have fun activities, and because we were Baptists, eat a lot of good food. I forgot to put that above. Baptists know how to cook. Just... wow. If you ever get invited to a Baptist cook out or pot luck, it's probably worth putting up with the proselytizing and swallowing your confrontational nature, because food. I miss that. That and the camaraderie.
Retreats... right. I think this was at a place called Rainbow Lodge. I don't remember a whole lot about it, except for the library in the lodge itself. There was a big fireplace and an atrium-like area with stairs running along one wall, I think. What's germane to the story I'm telling, though, is that in the middle of this retreat there was a copy of Clan of the Cave Bear in the middle of the library. Well now. When Mom said that I should find something to read, I know she didn't mean that, and didn't expect that I'd find this heathen tome there, but find it I did, and I sure did spend a lot of time reading on that retreat. I can't remember if I finished it there (I'm pretty sure not), and I can't remember how I did finish it, but I know I did.
As I got older I pushed more and more against those restrictions, and I think I make my Mom especially sound more "gasp! demons!" than she ever was, but in all honesty she was the one that convinced me that playing Dungeons and Dragons was searching out the Devil, and made my Dad take back the D&D Basic Set that he'd bought me for some event. Before I'd graduated my father and I had both devoured Dune and other similar books that were challenging to a certain fundamentalism.
I remember this event mostly because I just picked up Ms. Auel's 'Earth's Children' sequence of books on Audible. I had previously read 'The Mammoth Hunters' and I may have go to 'The Plains of Passage', but I don't remember much except the atlatl. They had a great sale going on, and I love me some good audiobooks. So far the performance is great, and the story is, by now, all new to me once more. But, there it is, as I listen I recall more and more.
Above all, what I recall is that I miss my mom. A lot. It's been over a year now. Still hurts. Screw telling the younger me about religion, I wish I could tell him to appreciate his mom a little more, pull his head out of his ass, pay more attention to the world around him and his relationships. We never appreciate what we have, in many ways, until it really is gone. Maybe that's part of the grieving process.
In other reading, "The Pyramids of London" by Andrea K. Höst was suggested to me. To be honest, the author was suggested emphatically, and this was the book I settled on to get to know her. So far it's quite good too. The world building is phenomenal, just enough information without overdoing it. I am also really enjoying this book. It really transcends its vampire and steampunk genres quite neatly, and I can't wait to learn more.
This may be a spoiler, but there is so much detail in the early part of "Pyramids..." it seems a shame that the rest of it doesn't take place where the narrative starts, but I consider that now to be Höst subverting expectations. You are given X, therefore this story must be Y, but no, guess what, it's Z. I do dig that a lot.
Currently Reading: "The Pyramids of London" by Andrea K. Höst (ebook), "The Clan of the Cave Bear" by Jean M. Auel (audiobook).
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Writing?
This blog is supposed to be about my writing, though that hasn't been where I've gone with it these last few days, so it's time for a writing post.
The last few nights I have been rereading my "King of the Emerald Isle" book, noting places it needs to change, familiarizing myself with the story again, etc.
After a discussion with my dad this last weekend, I think what's been hanging me up is some stupid plotting. A few chapters are going to be scrapped at the farthest point in the story, and I am likely to crush a few scenes early on and rewrite them.
I've struggled for a long time with character motivation. It never feels right to me. I'm trying to fix that, and I need to if I am to have a heroic arc for Lorcan. Right now, it's isn't really gelling.
I wonder how much of the first part in Eireland I can smash? Can it start in Castile? Hm.
Monday, July 6, 2015
The Pharaoh's Ark?
Today I ran into an encounter of my own with the latest project by the "Answers In Genesis" foundation run by the dominionist Ken Ham. It's called the Ark Encounter. This group is building a "life-size ark" from the Genesis story of Noah. (Notably not the Book of Jubilees version of Noah, I guess since it's apocryphal to Ham's tradition that's a no-no. Besides, that Noah is commanded by God to not consume the flesh of animals.)
I just have one question, specifically about the art direction. In the "big" and "little" Genesis stories, Noah only takes his immediate family with him, and it isn't that many people. And yet here's this picture:
I count over twenty individuals... Even in the apocryphal version there aren't that many people on the ark. See, this looks to me like an Egyptian pharaoh's use of slaves to build his tomb. I think that's a little bit of not paying attention to the source material, and since that's the rallying cry of this group, it's just a tad disingenuous.
Color me shocked. Humans lie with images and words, trying to make their view appealing to others? Huh.
Daren Aronofsky caught a lot of shit about "Noah", especially from fundamentalists. I'm willing to bet that most of them (in addition to many on the faith/anti-faith spectrum) don't even know about the Book of Jubilees, or that it's actually part of ongoing Christian belief systems (namely the Ethiopian Orthodox). The giant rock angels were a surprise at first, but that was just the confirmation for me that this wasn't the Genesis Noah story.
For my part, as a work of fiction, it was fairly entertaining. My brother asked me the other day if I thought that maybe Tubal-Cain ate the dodos. Heh.
I count over twenty individuals... Even in the apocryphal version there aren't that many people on the ark. See, this looks to me like an Egyptian pharaoh's use of slaves to build his tomb. I think that's a little bit of not paying attention to the source material, and since that's the rallying cry of this group, it's just a tad disingenuous.
Color me shocked. Humans lie with images and words, trying to make their view appealing to others? Huh.
Daren Aronofsky caught a lot of shit about "Noah", especially from fundamentalists. I'm willing to bet that most of them (in addition to many on the faith/anti-faith spectrum) don't even know about the Book of Jubilees, or that it's actually part of ongoing Christian belief systems (namely the Ethiopian Orthodox). The giant rock angels were a surprise at first, but that was just the confirmation for me that this wasn't the Genesis Noah story.
For my part, as a work of fiction, it was fairly entertaining. My brother asked me the other day if I thought that maybe Tubal-Cain ate the dodos. Heh.
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Return to the Blog, RP, etc.
I'm going to try returning to this, maybe not for fiction-a-day, though that is probably a good thing to do. No, rather I'm moved by a simple comment from a friend that ignited a fire in my brain.
Lure of the Liche Lord.
My god, what a book.
First, I pine for WFRP2E, or Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play, 2nd Edition. This game was what any OSR, balls-to-the-wall RPG should be, and its parent company collapsed and sold it to Fantasy Flight. Alas.
But LotLL... I've played D&D for years; for so long I've got gray in my beard legitimately. There's a whole ton of really good dungeon crawls, but they're all, one way or another, silly. From magic morphing fungi to crashed alien space ships, there's always something, somewhere, that breaks credulity. There's a moment where you sit back and snicker, or self-consciously tell your players "Don't laugh."
And lets be honest. S2: The Tomb of Horrors is amazing, but it is markedly silly. Awesome, but you have to suspend at hefty portion of disbelief.
This one isn't like that. Every trap makes sense. Every monster is a phenomenally scary as the next. Every wicked thing that will blast your character's sanity to ashes feels utterly within the scope of the world. Warhammer's a bad world. So bad there's often no redeeming qualities to anything going on. Wahammer doesn't give a fuck if you live, which makes surviving an adventure thrilling in a way I've never felt in other games.
These days, when I run games, I run variations on FATE Core. Using the inimitable Brennan Taylor's "Tower of the Serpents" as a model, I can create the sword and sorcery I want, the worlds of Fritz Leiber and Robert Howard and tales where magic isn't copied into banal lists.
LotLL lands firmly there. An imposing trek to a distant land, a struggle against a foe too nasty for death to take, and a race against mortal enemies that might actually be worse than the evil of bygone ages.
To any GM, my advice is to take this book, read it, and use it to make the best damn dungeon crawl you've ever run.
Find it here:
http://drivethrurpg.com/product/64293/Warhammer-Fantasy-Roleplay-2nd-Edition-Lure-of-the-Liche-Lord
Lure of the Liche Lord.
My god, what a book.
First, I pine for WFRP2E, or Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play, 2nd Edition. This game was what any OSR, balls-to-the-wall RPG should be, and its parent company collapsed and sold it to Fantasy Flight. Alas.
But LotLL... I've played D&D for years; for so long I've got gray in my beard legitimately. There's a whole ton of really good dungeon crawls, but they're all, one way or another, silly. From magic morphing fungi to crashed alien space ships, there's always something, somewhere, that breaks credulity. There's a moment where you sit back and snicker, or self-consciously tell your players "Don't laugh."
And lets be honest. S2: The Tomb of Horrors is amazing, but it is markedly silly. Awesome, but you have to suspend at hefty portion of disbelief.
This one isn't like that. Every trap makes sense. Every monster is a phenomenally scary as the next. Every wicked thing that will blast your character's sanity to ashes feels utterly within the scope of the world. Warhammer's a bad world. So bad there's often no redeeming qualities to anything going on. Wahammer doesn't give a fuck if you live, which makes surviving an adventure thrilling in a way I've never felt in other games.
These days, when I run games, I run variations on FATE Core. Using the inimitable Brennan Taylor's "Tower of the Serpents" as a model, I can create the sword and sorcery I want, the worlds of Fritz Leiber and Robert Howard and tales where magic isn't copied into banal lists.
LotLL lands firmly there. An imposing trek to a distant land, a struggle against a foe too nasty for death to take, and a race against mortal enemies that might actually be worse than the evil of bygone ages.
To any GM, my advice is to take this book, read it, and use it to make the best damn dungeon crawl you've ever run.
Find it here:
http://drivethrurpg.com/product/64293/Warhammer-Fantasy-Roleplay-2nd-Edition-Lure-of-the-Liche-Lord
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