Category Archives: Writing

October 19, 2014 · 20:48

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Sunday, October 19th

‘Cause the Chiefs and the Kings both won today and I’m all relaxed and sports-ed out, that’s why.

  • The results of yesterday’s “research project“? First, the margarita was quite good. It was the first time that I had tried the pre-mixed stuff that you simply pour over ice. Maybe not quite as good as making them “from scratch,” but not bad at all.
  • In case you didn’t notice, there was a comet that came thiiiiiis close to Mars earlier today. From Earth and from Earth orbit (where the Hubble Space Telescope and other telescopes are) it was a unique event. From Mars orbit (where there are five orbiting spacecraft from NASA, ESA, and the Indian space agency) and from the surface of Mars (where Curiosity and Opportunity are exploring), it should have been spectacular. All of our orbiting spacecraft have reported in as safe and unharmed from any impacts with dust, ice, or debris from the comet. It will take a few days to download the data and photos, but keep and eye open, there may be some amazing things coming.
  • For Halloween this year, we’ll be taking the telescopes out as we do, offering kids (and their parents) a look at some of the brighter objects.
  • Secondly, the cookies & cream ice cream was wonderful. The hard stuff, the real Dryer’s full-of-fat-and-lining-my-arteries-as-I-eat-it brand, none of this “reduced fat” or “fat free” crap.
  • Speaking of amazing views of comets, the European Rosetta spacecraft has been getting closer and closer to Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko for months now. In about ten days it will release the Philae lander, which will try to make the first soft landing on a comet, where it should send back data for at least a few days. After that the batteries will be discharged, but if we’re lucky and the solar panels can keep recharging the batteries, we could get data for months. Keep an eye out for some mind-boggling images there.
  • There’s something in the pine trees out in back. I could hear it last night, and so could Joey and Jessie. I went out and looked, but never saw it. But from the sound, it’s good sized, not just a squirrel or two. On a related note, something’s back walking around on my roof at night. I figured Rocky and/or Raquel, but either I’ve forgotten how loud it can be when they’re walking around or they’ve grown quite a bit. Or it could be something bigger than a raccoon?
  • Third, while each was excellent in their own right, combined they were marginal at best. The margarita seemed much too tangy and bitter when drunk immediately after a bite of ice cream. Thank goodness I didn’t take The Long-Suffering Wife’s suggestion of pouring the margarita over the ice cream.
  • The Philea lander has a camera which is separate from the cameras on the Rosetta “mothership.” This allowed it to take a selfie of Rosetta with Comet 67P only 16 km away. Wow!
  • The leading candidates for the tree critter: Raccoon, opossum, owl, mutant tree-climbing bunny rabbit, cougar, bear, E.T.
  • Finally, next time it would be best to do the before-bed chores (locking up the house, doing the dishes, cleaning the cat boxes, and so on) before having the margarita, not after. A relaxed, mellow, fuzzy state of mind does not lend itself to thoughts of, “Crap, I’ve still got to clean the cat boxes!”
  • Final astronomical heads up for the week is a partial solar eclipse this Thursday, October 23rd. The areas of visibility are pretty much the same as the total lunar eclipse on October 8th — the two eclipses are related. (Celestial mechanics and all of that sort of thing.) Go look at it if you have the chance, maybe even try to photograph it, but above all, BE SAFE WHEN LOOKING AT THE SUN. (Pop Quiz Redux — What should you never, EVER do because it really, REALLY will make you go blind?) There are ways to do it simply and cheaply (i.e., pinhole projection or a $2 “eclipse filter”), but doing it wrong can lead you to a world of hurt. Be safe, enjoy the sight!
  • November 1st is just thirteen days away, which means…NaNoWriMo. Should I, or shouldn’t I? Any suggestions for a plot, genre, or style you would like to see me tackle?

Remember, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!”

7 Comments

Filed under Astronomy, Critters, Juicy Chunks, Space, Writing

October 16, 2014 · 23:50

Flash Fiction: Calling Card

This week’s Flash Fiction Challenge goes off on a completely new tangent. It’s harvest time in the “Pennsyltucky” area where Chuck Wendig lives and he has a thing for odd and unusual varieties of apples. I share his appreciation for apples other than the standard Red Delicious, although not his disdain for actual Red Delicious apples. I’ll try to get other varieties when they’re available — this fall I’ve had Jazz, Honeycrisp, Gala, Fuji, and the Cripps Pinks that are in the kitchen right now.

But I digress. As the picture on TerribleMinds shows, there were forty varieties available at a local farmer’s market in Chuck’s neighborhood. Most of the varieties have unusual names. Our task was to pick three and use them in some way in our story. They could be character names, places, whatever.

I used a random number generator, which gave me 19, 6, and 2. My three apple variety names are “Orleans Reinette,” “Davenport Russet,” and “Nutmeg.” Which sounded to me like one of these, a that, and a this, which fell together like this:

CALLING CARD

It was raining, raining as it only does in LA after one of those dry spells they said would last six months but instead pounded us for six years. It spit, it drizzled, it built up to a torrential mist, then when you were ready to give up on actually using your wipers, it would turn into a frog-drowner for five minutes. In the distance there was a low rumble that might have been thunder, but might have just been a 707 sliding down into LAX through they grey overcast.

I took refuge from the gloom in a place even gloomier. The C’est Pool had been come into the world as a dive. From there it had been all downhill, paralleling the collapse of civilization on the local neighborhood. Elections were coming, a councilman was on the warpath, and the local cops were on a mission to clean up the area. It must be working — no one had been knifed or shot in the Pool in over a month.

Teddy was behind the bar, with his nose in a book as usual. He was taking classes to learn how to be a “real” bartender, his head stuffed with fantasies of bartending gigs at the Playboy Mansion, making fru-fru cocktails for naked babes. He looked up as I came in and grinned.

“Hey, DJ! You wanna try something new? I’ve got just the thing for you.”

I knew better than to try one of Teddy’s experiments. “What’s this one called, Teddy?”

“They call it an ‘Orleans Reinette.’ Last night we practiced highball drinks, I thought this one had a nice taste. So I got all of the ingredients on my way in this morning. Let me make one for you!”

This was a bad idea trying to grow into a death wish. “What’s in it, Teddy?”

“It’s vodka, lemon, Aspen, and a dash of nutmeg.”

I suddenly regretted eating breakfast. “Aspen? What’s that?”

“It’s that new apple-flavored soda pop. The mixture of it with the nutmeg gives it a taste like Christmas while the vodka kicks you in the gut.”

Yep, there’s a sign from God. That sounded a lot like my usual Christmas. “Okay, do this. Make one for me, but hold the Aspen, the lemon, the nutmeg, and the vodka. Add in a cold beer.”

Teddy’s lips moved as he did the math, then his face fell as he figured it out. I just stared at him, so he sighed, reached into the fridge, and set the cold bottle in front of me. As I pried the top off, he snapped his fingers and turned back toward the cash register.

“Some guy was in here asking for you. He left his card, said it was important.” Teddy turned back to me, holding the card out.

I took it and gave a quick glance. “Davenport Russet – Attorney.”  In gold letters there was an address high up in one of the new skyscrapers in Century City. I already hated the guy. The card got crumpled up as my hand voluntarily spasmed. I hit the waste basket behind the bar with one shot. Not bad for this time of day.

There was a flash of flame in the waste basket. Suddenly Teddy was turning back to me, holding out a business card.

“Some guy was in here asking for you. He left his card, wrote a note on it, said it was important.”

I sat there staring at Teddy for several seconds, running through my memories of recent reality. When had Teddy turned away from me? Didn’t we just do this? If this was déjà vu, it was one hell of a case of it.

Teddy seemed to have noticed nothing. He just stood there, growing more puzzled by the second when I just sat there slack-jawed, staring at him. I decided to reach out and take the card.

“Davenport Russet – Attorney.” There was something written on the back. I could feel it, but I was not going to turn the card over and read it. Another quick crumple, another quick toss, another nothing but net.

Flash! “Some guy was in here asking for you. He left his card, wrote a note on it, said I had to make sure you read it, said it was important,” Teddy said innocently, turning back to me and holding out a card.

This time I didn’t stare, but I was very cautious when I took the card. It seemed to be ordinary paper, nothing unusual. It featured an embossed logo of some kind, nice engraved printing, an address, a phone number, and “Davenport Russet – Attorney.”

I slowly turned the card over and saw something scrawled in red ink. At least, I was praying it was red ink. “Drink the Orleans Reinette,” was barely legible, in a handwritten font that would have been at home in “The Exorcist.”

The hell with that.

I put the card down on the bar with the message side hidden. I stood up quickly, dropped a fiver on the bar for the beer, and sprinted for the door. Perhaps a walk in the rain would clear my head. A walk to San Francisco should do the trick.

Outside, we were back at the “mist” setting, which turned to “monsoon” before I got five steps from the door. I had the green light, so I headed across the street, only to watch the light turn straight to red while I was in the middle. A truck that hadn’t been there two seconds ago came barreling through from my right, nearly pulping me. I made it to the sidewalk, drenched and terrified.

Shivering in the freezing rain, I shoved my hands into my coat pockets for warmth. In the one pocket I could feel a business card. I would have sworn that pocket had been empty. Trembling from more than the cold, I pulled the card out.

“Davenport Russet – Attorney.”

A bolt of lightning struck somewhere very close, the accompanying peal of thunder rattling the windows and setting off car alarms up and down the street.

3 Comments

Filed under Los Angeles, Science Fiction, Writing

October 9, 2014 · 23:46

Flash Fiction: Bocas Del Toro

This week’s Flash Fiction Challenge once again builds on last week’s Challenge. Then, we all wrote one sentence. That’s it. One. Sentence. It was hoped that they would be really fantastic sentences. This week, we’re all supposed to take someone else’s sentence and write a story around it. Don’t start with it, don’t end with it, just include it.

I used a sentence by Leigh Schulman, which was, “I have never wished the death of another living being like I did the rooster who lived next door to us in Bocas del Toro.” For whatever reason, that sentence tickled my Muse’s fancy, so she gave me a scene, which fit into a story, which came out relatively easily. Even the punch line. (It’s great when it works like that, it really is.)

BOCAS DEL TORO

What freakin’ pinhead, cloistered in the hallowed, ivy-covered halls of academia, thought it would be a good idea to put a multi-billion dollar telescope complex on the top of a freakin’ active volcano?

Now it’s all finger-pointing, blaming, and shaming because nobody knew anything and everyone wants to know when they didn’t know it, but really, how hard could it have been to just google the place? Hell, even the Wikipedia page says it’s active with warning tremors going on for years.

Ask any astronomer where they want to put a really big telescope, and they’ll tell you they want it in orbit at the L4 point. Smack ‘em once and tell them you’re talking for reals, not about some sort of “maybe they’ll give us 10% of the GDP” fantasy, and they’ll tell you to find a tall, solitary mountain near a western coast.

It all has to do with the air and turbulence, which affect how well you can see with your big, expensive toy. If the prevailing winds come off of thousands of miles of flat water in a nice, laminar, non-turbulent way, the stars are prettier and steadier. Not as pretty or steady as they would be at L4, but you can give a second smack to the smartass who points that out.

Thus the huge complex built on Volcán Barú. There were many discussions about the potential instabilities in the Central American political regimes, but apparently none about the potential instabilities of the region’s geology. Really, no one figured out what “Volcán” meant?

That’s how I found myself in Panama. No astronomy for me, I don’t know my black holes from my Uranus. But give me a huge construction project that’s going into the toilet and I’m your guy. Civil engineer, trouble shooter, and trouble maker — have massive earth-moving machinery, will travel.

We were doing week-on, week-off shifts on the mountain. The constant earthquakes and potential for toxic gases were making us earn our hazard pay. Having half the team off on the beach made it bearable to only be getting obscene salaries instead of ludicrously obscene salaries.

It also meant we had half the team to start over with if the whole thing blew and we lost everyone up there.

After six months of this BS I was getting to the point where I preferred to be at the summit. At least there it wasn’t boiling every day and simmering every night, with 99% humidity on every day that ended in “Y.” The beach was okay, the women liked to spend my money, and the local beer was good. Still, the benefits didn’t make up for the mosquitos the size of hummingbirds, the snakes and critters, and the need to chew your air before swallowing.

Worst of all was the noise in the morning, when decent beings are asleep and/or hungover. I have never wished the death of another living being like I did the rooster who lived next door to us in Bocas del Toro. An hour before sunrise, every freakin’ day, he would start sounding off. That in turn would set off every other rooster within a mile. In minutes, only the dead could still be unconscious.

I was down in Bocas when the pencil pushers started figuring out they had bitten off more than they could chew. The volcano was getting feistier, all of that high-priced glass was getting closer and closer to being useless, and someone finally noticed the clause in our contract that said we only got paid in full if we succeeded in full.

I knew they were desperate when they brought in the local shaman. He had gotten a lot of press when the project was first proposed, selling his story about how the site was sacred to his people. It hadn’t take long for a substantial amount of funds to be allocated for “public relations,” and for the shaman to end up with a big house on the beach a long way from any sacred ground.

How did this yokel end up on the payroll now? It wasn’t hard to find out the decision had been made way above my pay grade. I have no idea how someone who buys into the whole “mystical, angry, and offended ancient gods” theory gets to be a Senior VP at an international engineering megacorp, but no one asked for my opinion.

All I got was the call to pick up supplies and bust my butt hauling it all back up to the summit. Candles, incense, alcohol, fruits, vegetables, an iguana, miscellaneous crap – and “the biggest, baddest chicken you can find.”

I do love a mystical, angry, ancient god with a sense of humor.

When I get a chance to kill two birds with one stone, I take it, especially if one of the birds is Cucuy, my feathered arch nemesis. The idiot bird cost me more than its owner makes in a year, but it wasn’t my money.

The wrinkled dude who sold him also insisted I know the chicken’s name and use it when addressing him. Is that weird, or what? Who names their chickens, anyway? I mean, other than “McNugget” or “Foghorn Leghorn.”

Cucuy was making quite a ruckus all the way up the dirt road toward the observatory. It must have had some effect, because I saw more wildlife along the road than I had ever seen before. Deer popped up in the road in front of me, parrots filled the trees overhead, and there were snakes all over the road.

Maybe the jungle critters on the mountain hadn’t ever heard a rooster before. Or maybe they actually had heard this rooster, even from fifty miles away, and were coming out to pay their last respects. I didn’t think the shaman wanted Cucuy for a new biological alarm clock.

I was right about that, but wrong about the shaman.

There weren’t a lot of us who got off of the volcano alive. In retrospect, they should have been clear about what the shaman meant when he said the he could solve the problem. The hoodoo VP thought he was paying to quiet down the mountain god, while the shaman was, of course, working to set him free.

Say what you want about superstition, gods, rituals, and all of that mumbo jumbo. When that rooster’s throat got slit and the ground started hopping, the last thing I saw as I high-tailed it out of there was a half-mile high fountain of magma that looked exactly like Cucuy.

As for the fate of the multi-billion dollar observatory? Last time anyone saw it, it was headed toward L4, tossed there in pieces by a mystical, angry, ancient god with a sense of humor.

1 Comment

Filed under Religion, Science Fiction, Writing

October 1, 2014 · 21:44

What Are You Reading On Wednesday, October 1st?

After several consecutive days in which it feels like I’m getting to bed way too late, getting up way too early, and juggling cats all day in between, today has been more odd than most. A memorial service for an ex-brother-in-law (is there an actual term for a brother or sister of an ex-spouse?) and way, way too many hours in LA rush hour traffic, both coming and going, watching innumerable yahoos driving while on the phone, texting, eating, shaving, putting on makeup, or generally doing ANYTHING except driving their car and staying in their own lane.

Trying to get my thoughts back on track this evening, I realized I hadn’t actually sat and read a book, a work of fiction printed on dead trees, in quite a while. I read articles and news and tweets and so on all day long, and I’m constantly looking stuff up and web surfing and reading things about all of the various topics you might see here — but I haven’t just kicked back and read a book for the pleasure of it in some time.

I think I’m going to do that tonight. When I was last reading, I was about a quarter of the way through Mira Grant’s “Blackout.” It’s still sitting here on my desk, staring at me, making me feel guilty every day. Time to get back to the zombie apocalypse.

If you’re following this blog and you’re not a bot (hello, bots!) I’m confident that you’re also a reader. While I go off for some mandatory decompression time with a good book, I’ll ask what you’re reading or what you most recently read? I’m curious.

9 Comments

Filed under Distracted Driving, Paul, Science Fiction, Writing

September 25, 2014 · 23:13

Flash Fiction: Bust (Act Three)

Late last year we did something similar to the current ongoing Flash Fiction Challenge. Then, we spent five weeks (here, here, here, here, and here) writing 200 words each week. Each week we used the previous work of someone or some group to build on. It was pretty fun.

This time we were misled by a devious and diabolical ringleader, who instructed us to write 500 words as the first half of a 1,000 word story. But then our beloved Big Chuck changed the rules on us, revealing last week that our 500 words were only the first third of a story. Last week we all took someone else’s first 500 words and added the “middle” 500 words of our own.

My first 500 words from two weeks ago was picked up by Jemima Pett and her continuation of my story can be found here. I really liked what she did and there are many suitably creepy things for us to figure out on our own. Alas, as of this writing, no one has picked it up to write a third act. Maybe later.

Last week I picked up the first 500 words from Aspen Gainer — her original post and website can be found here, while my 2nd 500 word continuation can be found here. This story thread has proven popular. So far it’s been picked up by Leah Heard and by Jon Stoffel. Both are wonderful and well written and I encourage you to read them.

Finally, this week we’re to pick up a story that we have yet to work on and finish it with a third section of 500 words. I’ve picked “Bust,” which is so far very creepy and ominous and threatening and not necessarily for those who don’t like horror or slasher films. Like me! Which is one of the reasons that it’s such a challenge to finish without screwing up too badly.

(Late, late note — this was a bitch to get down to size, my toughest edit in a long time. First draft was 731 words, second was 619, third was 541, fourth & final draft is 500 words on the nose. I win!)

“Bust” was started two weeks ago by Geletilari, continued last week by Sweetsoleah, and now completed by me. I hope everyone enjoys it!

BUST (Act Three)

Act One (by Geletilari)

I throw the dart up into the air and it hits the ceiling and sticks. I watch it, laying prone on my bed, pillow under my feet. My new white Hanes crew socks are so bright. I love new socks and underwear. I wiggle my toes and look back up to the ceiling, eyeing the blue dart and daring it to fall. As if on command, it releases its hold on the ceiling and drops, landing softly on my thigh, bouncing and resting on the bed.

“Shit.”

I toss another dart northward and it does not make it to the ceiling, falling between my legs onto the sheet. I continue this way for some time. It is a game I made up and I change the rules every time. I don’t play it often. But I play it when I am angry. Why am I angry? I am angry because my brother Garth is successful. He is the golden boy in the family and he just got a new house and a new wife. I am angry because I am working at an Applebee’s instead of at the pool like I wanted to this summer. I am angry because Jeannette broke up with me right before our one year anniversary and after I spent money on concert tickets. I am angry because my name is Clark. Who am I, fucking Superman? I am angry that I will never be Superman.

I toss a red dart and it sticks. I roll over onto my belly and close my eyes. I wait for it to fall. The doorbell rings, and I jump up out of bed, catching the dart on my left forearm. It pierces the skin and I go to pull it out, looking out of the second story window. I love weekends. I smile for the first time this morning. Jehovah Witnesses! Two of them. One is a man in a nice suit, the other a lady in a pants suit. I can hardly contain my glee. Maybe today won’t be a total bust.

I open my top drawer and take out my revolver, sliding it into the back of my jeans. I grab a pair of cuffs.

“No, no, there are two of them.” I laugh and find some rope and a t-shirt and bound downstairs. The front door is at the bottom of the steps. I can see them peeking through the cut class window, altering the prisms on the quarry tile at my feet. Opening the door, I try not to look excited.

“Yeah?” I already see the woman take one step forward, a pamphlet in her hand already open to a specific page.

“Do you every wonder if God exists? Would you like to discuss it?”

“Yes, I’d like to. I’m very concerned about it.”

I open the door wider.

“Won’t you come in?”

Act Two (by Sweetsoleah)

With a bright smile the woman and the man step inside.

From here on it is easy for me, like following a pattern. It is not the first time that I will do this, but at this moment I feel like it is the most satisfying time.

A wicked grin spreads over my face while I close the door behind them. It only takes a few minutes for me to have them at the right place. A quick lie and they are in the basement. I show them the fitness room to appear polite, but then I lead them right through my favorite door.

„Inside please, the room is not as pretty as the one upstairs, but at least down here we have no problems with bugs. The exterminator said he would come yesterday, but he didn’t show up and now I can’t let anyone sit in there. It is really disgusting I am sorry.“

„No problem Mr. Bennington“, replies the man smoothly.

„Clark, please, Mr. Bennington is my father.“

I give him a friendly smile, before I turn away to close the door behind us. In front of us is not a room, but a small corridor with two other doors, one of those is a cupboard with my favorite playthings. They look back at me, but I shoo them forward. No need for them to know, that I will lock the door behind us. They reach the door on the other side of the corridor and open it. I know what lies behind. A small windowless room with four chairs and a table. No other furniture or decorations.

With a frown the woman turns around to look at me.

„Are you sure that we can’t sit upstairs? It would be a lot friendlier talking about the lord with the sun shining through the window.“

I put on the saddest expression and tell her the same lie again.

„Really I can’t let you see this and the smell is the worst. The only place that I can really use is this one. I am really sorry, but maybe you would like something to drink?“

Her smile doesn’t return, but she nods and I can feel the shell of my lie cracking. I have to move fast now. I smile reassuringly at her and move to the other door.

In the cupboard is everything I need. In the shadow of the door they both can’t see me and this is my chance. My smile broadens and I take my favorite knife out of the cupboard and put it on my belt. Next I take the revolver from the back of my jeans where I concealed it. The metall shines in the dim light and I check the safety off.

I step around the door of the cupboard and point the revolver straight at them. I remember the first time I did this my arm shook slightly, but today it is straight and strong. I am no longer nervous about this.

I grin at the man, who is looking at me with a strange expression.

„Stay exactly where you are, understand?“

Act Three (by Paul Willett)

“I understand, Mr. Benni…, uh, Clark. What are you doing?.”

“Shut up. Get into the room.” I wiggle the gun in that direction so there’s no misunderstanding. “Both of you, now.”

“No, Clark,” the woman says. “You promised we would talk about God. Salvation can be yours, but not this way.”

She’s supposed to be screaming. They always scream. What’s wrong with her, doesn’t she understand who’s in control here?

“Shut up and move. Get in there or the shooting starts.”

“Clark,” the man says, “what would your brother Garth think if he saw you right now?”

His words punch me in the chest. I stagger back and fall against the cupboard door. My gun drops to my side, leaving me vulnerable. I can’t ever allow myself to be vulnerable. I must be in control.

I quickly raise the gun back up, but neither of my guests moves to take advantage of my momentary weakness. My arm shakes again, just like that first time. My breath comes in short gasps as I stagger upright. I put the gun right in the man’s face.

“How do you know my brother?” I bellow. “Did that sanctimonious prick send you here? Did he tell you you were going to die here? Move or die! Your choice.”

The man’s melancholy gaze never wavers. The woman holds out that damn pamphlet again. “We must discuss God and salvation, Clark. Garth thought it might be a last chance to save you.”

I don’t need any more of this shit from either of them. With a quick motion, I shift my aim. Point blank, right between her eyes.

I pull the trigger.

This world becomes another.

The sound is deafening. The gun’s kick lifts my arm. Where there must be spattered blood and brains, there is nothing but gunpowder smoke, acrid and stinging.

The woman is a blur, now behind me. Somehow she finds my handcuffs, cuffs my free wrist, pulls and twists my gun hand down and back to cuff it. My arm breaks in two places. I have yet to take a breath since shooting.

I scream. I scream until my lungs ache. When I can finally stop screaming, I find myself bound to one of the chairs. The man is calmly tying a tourniquet on my arm, a jagged bone sticking out through the skin. There is a lot of blood.

“Who are you?” I scream hysterically.

“We are nobody, merely servants,” he says calmly.

“You should have listened,” the woman says. “You could have had salvation. Now you have damnation.”

I ignore her. My vision goes grey from the pain and loss of blood. I have a sudden moment of clarity. “Who are you servants of?” I ask.

The man stands and looks past me to the door, bowing his head solemnly.

“Hello, Clark,” Garth says, stepping into my view. “We’re going to discuss the secret to my success.”

Garth takes out a very large knife, his eyes starting to glow like coals.

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction, Writing

September 24, 2014 · 22:52

I Need A Better System

Or an assistant. Or an editor. Or some software to keep track of what I’ve written and what I haven’t.

I just spent the better part of an hour writing a really good piece about a certain topic. Not a great piece, mind you, but a pretty good one. Not anything I was going to be sending out when I apply to Clarion, but not anything I was going to be ashamed about.

I proofed it, made a couple of changes. Just before I hit the big, blue “Publish” button, I stopped, something nagging at my brain. Something about one of the phrases and metaphors I had used sounded familiar…

I saved the draft and went hunting. Fortunately, with everything being electronic and WordPress having some good search and editing tools built in, it only took a minute to find what my subconscious had been nagging me about.

Almost the exact same article, written about four months ago.

On the one hand, consistency is a marvelous thing. Upon closer examination, there were whole paragraphs that were about 80% identical. The layout and flow of the entire article was the same. A couple of the new snarky comments were better than the old ones, but several of the old ones were pretty good too.

But it was all useless. Publishing it would have proven nothing other than the fact that I need to keep a closer eye on symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer’s. (Just kidding — I think.)

So, making lemons out of lemonade, it’s time to think about upping my game and getting a bit more organized here.

Any other bloggers out there having this issue and have any suggestions on software or a system to watch out for this sort of thing in the future? Suggestions in the comments would be appreciated.

However, no need to suggest that I simply pull my head out of my ass. I’ve already figured that one out on my own, thanks!

Leave a comment

Filed under Paul, Writing

September 18, 2014 · 22:51

Flash Fiction: Twinkle (Act Two)

Late last year we did something similar to the current ongoing Flash Fiction Challenge. Then, we spent five weeks (here, here, here, here, and here) writing 200 words each week. Each week we used the previous work of someone or some group to build on. It was pretty fun.

This time we were supposed to write 500 words as the first half of a 1,000 word story, but as expected, Grand Exulted Potentate Supreme Chuck changed the rules on us. Turns out our 500 words are only the first third (at least, until the rules change again) of a story, so our task is now to pick someone else’s first 500 words and add the “middle” 500 words of our own. Supposedly this means that next week we will all pick some other 1,000 words created by two other authors and finish it. Or at least, add 500 more words. You get the drift.

My first 500 words from last week was picked up by Jemima Pett and her continuation of my story can be found here. I really liked what she did and there are many suitably creepy things for us to figure out on our own.

The first 500 words that I picked is “Twinkle” from Aspen Gainer — her original post and website can be found here. I wanted to try to keep the tone of Aspen’s first half, while switching to Tomas’ point of view, and with luck, leaving it open-ended enough so that someone will tell us how it ends (or at least where it goes from here) next week. I hope you enjoy it.

TWINKLE (Act Two)

Act One (by Aspen Gainer)

“I’d like to go to space,” Katarina told her friend Tomas, tentative but confident. She turned the phrase over in her mind, testing the shape of the words in her mouth.

People laughed at her when she talked about going, but it felt more and more right each time. Even Tomas doubted her, writing it off as one of ‘Kat’s weird, wishy-washy ideas’ that would never pan out.

To be honest, Katarina even laughed at herself. Every time she thought about space travel as a real thing–not just a Heinlein-Asimov-Bradbury fuelled frenzy of excitement–after the awed giggles bubbled up through her tight chest and out of her upturned lips, she would shake her head just like her friends and tell herself why she’d never go.

“You’re too fat,” she’d say to the pink, blobby girl who lived in the mirror. She envisioned her reflection trying to squeeze into a spacesuit, coaxing and yanking an imaginary helmet over her chubby cheeks in the idle hope those cheeks wouldn’t trip up this one small step for Kat-kind.

“You’re too stupid,” she’d trace in the dust on her dresser while getting ready for bed. Even at night when she dreamed it was about her unsuitability for space travel. She’d find herself in a classroom, deep in a maze somewhere in NASA, and the man at the whiteboard would tell her she could fly whenever she wanted…after she solved the math problem on the page in front of her. Lost in space even in her dream, she doodled and doodled until the hand was just a skeleton and the paper had long since disintegrated.

Katarina knew she’d never go. She was nothing, no one, completely unworthy of these dreams. She was the night shift girl, the alcoholic’s daughter, not the Bondar-Lightyear-infinity-and-beyond type. Katarina Yosefa was tied irreparably to the gravid Earth, forever unable to ascend. She was not made of the right, light stuff.

But her heart was there anyway, buoyant beyond all sagacity, beyond the sky, beyond atmosphere and into the deep, vast nothingness–the emptiness that should have terrified her but reassured her instead.
Up there in the vast black space, she left here behind, left her behind. No heavy, cold blue-water world with all of its fluid, flexing pain. Up there she could lose herself in the searing-hot sun and empty darkness. She could drift in nothingness, alone and apart from everything she had ever known about life, about humanity, about feeling.

In space, there was nothing, her few friends told her, but for Katarina there was everything. Anything. The black, vast emptiness was potential, creation; she could build her own world and a life that came from within her.

Tomas, who never laughed at her, rang her doorbell one night for coffee. He hadn’t heard from her in more than a week, and while this was not unusual, it suddenly made him uneasy. There was no answer so he went in. The empty house chilled his skin.

Act Two (by Paul Willett)

The house was overflowing with an oppressive silence as Tomas crept through the downstairs rooms. Katarina had never allowed him to come in and had never said why. Tomas had been curious, but had always respected her wishes. Trespassing now felt like a betrayal.

Everything seemed to be in place and in order, but decorated from a period half a lifetime past. The main room was arranged around a low table serving as an altar, holding only a single, framed picture of a young woman. She stood next to a small airplane, one arm draped across the propeller, the other on her hip. Her head was thrown back with laughter and her expression was one of undiluted triumph.

On the couch and floor were scattered a multitude of empty liquor bottles. Tomas carefully picked his way around them in the gloom.

Creeping up the stairs, Tomas could see four doors leading off from the landing. The one directly in front of him led to a bathroom, dominated by a claw-foot bathtub. Mismatched towels lay in a pile under the freestanding sink.

Testing the door on the far left, Tomas found it locked. The middle door was ajar and swung open easily at his touch.

Inside, the dim light showed little, but the smell was revolting. As Tomas’ eyes adjusted he could see chaos, garbage and litter mixed with weeks’ worth of discarded clothing. The outline of someone was sprawled across the bed, far too large to be Katarina.

Had Kat’s father finally drunk himself into a grave he had pursued for years? Tomas was seized by fear and indecision, trying to think of what he should do and how he could explain his presence here. When the body suddenly convulsed with a snore and collapsed back into unconsciousness, Tomas thought his heart would burst.

Backing out, Tomas turned to the final door. This must be Katarina’s room. It was clean but cluttered, the dresser top covered in books about Mars and space travel and galaxies. The window was open, thin curtains fluttering with the breeze. Scraps of paper covered the bed, pages filled with doodles of alien landscapes and strangely beautiful ships of the night. The ceiling was covered with phosphorescent stars and moons only faintly glowing a pale and sickly shade of green, their energy from today’s sunlight nearly spent.

“Katarina?” he softly called. There was no answer, but a light behind him caught his eye. He spun, but saw nothing.

“Katarina?” he called again, a touch louder. Again, no sound could be heard but for the rustling curtains, but this time Tomas saw a short, faint increase in the light from the dim stars on the ceiling, as gentle as a sigh.

“Katarina? Where are you?” Tomas asked the emptiness more urgently. “Talk to me, I’m worried about you. What’s going on? Kat?” With each invocation of her name, a wave of light rippled across the plastic constellations, each swell of photons successively brighter.

8 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction, Writing

September 11, 2014 · 21:49

Flash Fiction: Guide (Act One)

Late last year we did something similar to this week’s Flash Fiction Challenge. Then, we spent five weeks (here, here, here, here, and here) writing 200 words each week. Each week we used the previous work of someone or some group to build on. It was pretty fun.

This time we’re doing the first half of a story, 500 words. Surprisingly, my muse delivered this one easily and I like it a lot. Assuming that next week we’ll all be instructed to pick someone else’s first half story and finish it with our second half, I hope that someone likes this well enough to tell me how it ends.

GUIDE (Act One)

We had been to Mazatlan a dozen times before on these cruises, so our interest in the various shore trips was just about at zero. You can only see so many beaches and wanna-be cathedrals before staying on the boat to drink sounded like a much better alternative.

This cruise, however, was my brother’s first to the Mexican west coast. He wanted to do it all and had picked a tour called “Underground Mazatlan.” My husband and I had grudgingly agreed to go, smiling a lot, agreeing it would be spectacular, and counting the minutes until we could get back to the boat and into the bar.

At the bottom of the gangplank we met our guide. In passable English, he told us we were the only ones signed up for this tour. He didn’t have a car, but assured us our destination was only a few blocks away, an easy walk. Yeah, right.

Thank God I was wearing flats instead of heels. The brick and cobblestones were supposed to be quaint but they were simply torture to walk on. My brother was snapping pictures like an idiot, asking one question after another. You would think he had never been outside of New Jersey before.

Our guide, Jorge or Jose or Juan or whatever, enthusiastically answered all of my brother’s questions. He was practically falling over himself to point out things considered to be fascinating and unique. In my mind there was no doubt he was merely fishing for a big tip when the tour was over, but my brother lapped it up.

It was hot, sticky, and there were mosquitos the size of hummingbirds. We occasionally would pass something which smelled offensive. It was beyond me how these people could live like this.

At last, after must have been at least fifteen minutes of walking, we arrived at an adobe church. Of course, where else?

As we went inside, our guide took off his hat and did the holy water thing at the door. I wasn’t sure if I should take my hat off or leave it on, and the other rituals were way beyond me, so I took off my sunglasses and called it even. The place was dim, lit only by the light coming in from thin windows.

We were led along the outside walls toward a small room at the front. As my eyes adjusted, I could see twenty or thirty people in the pews, holding some sort of ceremony. None of them looked at us as our guide led us to a small opening in the floor, filled with an inky blackness.

Our guide pulled flashlights out of a cabinet, handed them out, and then started slowly down the narrow, steep, stone steps. My idiot brother was right behind him. I looked at my husband, who shrugged silently and started down next. I thought about just finding a cab back to the boat, but instead started down into the pit.

3 Comments

Filed under Travel, Writing

September 7, 2014 · 21:11

The Author & Moisture Combination

I had the pleasure this evening of seeing John Scalzi talk at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena. Mr. Scalzi is on his four-week long national tour for his new novel, “Lock In.”

IMG_1721 small

It was a great turnout, standing room only, and (as always) the readings, questions, and snappy banter was very well received.

IMG_1730 cropped

Mr. Scalzi gives good book tour. I’ve seen him before on tour (and at conventions) and I’ve always enjoyed his in-person presentations just as much as I enjoy his writing. And it’s not just his novels that I admire (and I’m a pretty huge fan of those) but also his “Whatever” website. Would that someday I can write a fraction as well as he does.

IMG_1731 cropped

This is how physicists talk also, i.e., with their hands. (My apologies for the blurry pictures, but in a setting like this I never want to be “that guy”, the one who’s rudely getting in everyone’s way and then firing off a flash that’s annoying to everyone in the room. Sometimes ambient light means that you just have to live with some blur. As with astrophotos, shoot a lot of frames, one or two should come out.)

The short version is simple — if you have a chance to catch Mr. Scalzi on this tour, at a convention, or on some other future tour, I highly recommend that you make time to go see him speak. It’s well worth it. (I’m looking at you, people of San Diego, Iowa City, Gurnee, Lexington, Troy, Brookline, Concord, Saratoga Springs, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Chicago.)

IMG_1736 small

On the way home from Pasadena, there were some great clouds to be seen as thunderheads built up over the mountains and high deserts. Hurricane Norbert is a Category Three storm off of Baja California, and it’s pumping moisture into the area, which is highly unusual for this time of year.

IMG_1742 small

The great part about moisture and clouds are the great sunsets they create. We don’t get that many of them here in Southern California.

IMG_1760 small

Way too often it’s “clear and a million,” which is great for the Chamber of Commerce postcards, but not good for colorful sunsets. That’s why the great sunset pictures come from tropical islands and beaches at jungle locales.

So let’s go find a tropical island with a beach next to a jungle! For the sunsets, and science, and art, of course.

1 Comment

Filed under Fandom, Weather, Writing

September 4, 2014 · 23:30

Flash Fiction: Bewitching Confirmation

It’s deja vu all over again for this week’s Flash Fiction Challenge. Two random number —> two title fragments —> the story title for which we get to discover the story. I got a 14 (“bewitching”) and a 5 (“confirmation”), so here’s my story.

BEWITCHING CONFIRMATION

The next time someone tells you there’s no such thing as “fate,” tell them my story and see if they still believe you.

I grew up out in the sticks of North Dakota with every expectation that I would take over my father’s farm (which had been my grandfather’s farm and my great-grandfather’s farm) and keep raising soybeans and sunflower seeds. My family expected it, my friends expected it, and most days even I expected it.

I’m not saying we were backwards or out of touch, but we didn’t own a television set until late in the Sixties. It wouldn’t have done us much good to have one to begin with, given how far away from all the stations we were. Folks in town had cable, but it didn’t run twenty-five miles out to service two dozen folks like us. We could put up a fifty-foot antenna to pull in the Bismarck station and on a good day, maybe get a snowy, fuzzy signal from Aberdeen.

When we finally did get a set, the only shows we were allowed to watch were “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color” and “Bonanza” on Sunday night – if our homework and our chores were all done. Other than that, we watched nothing but the local farm reports, weather, and “The Huntley-Brinkley Report”.

Sometime during my early high school years, Mom and Dad decided that it was time to move into the brave, new future and send me to college. There were meetings in town run by the NDSU Agricultural Outreach Program and among other seeds planted was the one that got my parents thinking about the future of agriculture and my place in it. I had decent grades, so off to Fargo I went.

To say that there was some culture shock for me in my freshman year would be a tremendous understatement. There were more people in some of my classes than there had been in my whole high school. The transition from über rural isolation to total cultural immersion was a rough one much of the time, but when I came out the other side, it was obvious to me that my parents’ plans for me might need some serious revisions.

For all that it had been created by a bunch of dirt-farming, Midwestern, conservative Protestants, NDSU had some surprisingly forward-thinking programs. In particular, we were encouraged to take a broad spectrum of classes in any field that interested us. In my case, I had to keep up on core classes for my Agriculture major, but beyond that I found I was fascinated by classes as diverse as economics, the history of radio and motion pictures, statistics, and business administration.

My junior year the school decided to start an on-campus television station. I joined the group putting it together and had some ideas on some local programs we could create even with our limited funding. By the time we had been on the air two months, I was a segment producer. By my senior year I was an associate producer.

Then I met Kiara.

I had gone through a handful of relationships in my first three years at college, most very platonic. On the one hand, it was North Dakota, so almost everyone there had a fairly straight-laced background. On the other hand, it was the early Seventies. Our “Summer of Love” had been more like a “Weekend of Like”, but I had managed to lose my virginity.

Kiara was a veteran from a lifestyle we had only seen on television. She had been at Woodstock. She had lived in Haight-Ashbury for a year. How she ended up in North Dakota was a mystery to everyone except her, and she wasn’t telling. How she ended up with me was just a mystery to everyone.

I wasn’t arguing with her choice. We were about as diametrically opposite as we could be on so many topics, from the way we had been raised to the way we thought about just about everything. Despite that, our most heated arguments were over nothing more serious than what to have for dinner.

In a situation like that, young and madly in love, what could possibly go wrong? Well, except for winter break arriving and Kiara insisting she should go home with me for three weeks to meet my parents and family.

Needless to say, I had not mentioned Kiara to my parents. Perhaps my naiveté was showing, but I was so caught up in the present with her, school, and my television work that I simply had not thought ahead that far.

“I don’t think you know what you’re getting into,” I said. “That would be a really bad idea.”

“Nonsense, it will all be fine,” she replied. “It will be obvious to them how much we were destined for each other and accepting it will be as natural as the sunrise.”

“It will be a disaster with a great deal of screaming, yelling, arguing, and possibly a homicide or two.”

“If you think so, but I believe we can allow our talents to influence events to a much more reasonable outcome. What are you afraid of, other than them figuring out that you’re getting laid on a regular basis?”

I just looked at her, mute, at a total loss for words. How could I explain what was so obvious to me but so inconceivable to her?

“Is it that you haven’t told them about me,” she asked, “or that you haven’t told them you’re not going to be a farmer when you graduate?”

“What? I never… We haven’t… I mean, how did you?”

“No, we haven’t discussed those things, but I’m your soul mate. I know things about you that you don’t know. When you allow yourself to do so, you’ll do the same with me.” As I said, she had been at Woodstock.

“It’s obvious to me you haven’t told them those things,” she continued. “It’s also obvious that you’re scared. You’re scared because you don’t know how to deal with what you see as a problem. But once I show you how to use your talent, we’ll all be fine. Okay?”

It was anything but okay, but the only coherent thought I could get out was, “Talent?”

“Of course, ‘talent.’ You have yours, I have mine. That’s why we’re soul mates. You’ll understand later. For right now, just plan on us visiting your family for the holidays. And get together some of your gear so we can do a little documentary about it. I’ve got a good feeling about it.”

“You want me to make a documentary about you meeting my family for the first time?”

“Yes, that and you letting them know about the change in your future plans. I’m sure you can come up with an outline, a human interest piece, older generation meets the new, that sort of thing.”

“You’ve lost me.”

Kiara sighed, as one would when repeating a lesson to a struggling, confused child.

“Your talent is telling stories, specifically in this life through your television shows. Your soul’s archetype is that of a bard. My talent is inspiration and persuasion. Most would call me a witch, but I think ‘muse’ is a better description. We’ve no doubt been together in many past lives, which is why I was drawn here to find you. Later we’ll explore that, but for now, just believe it works. Write an outline of what story you want to tell about this event and we’ll make it happen.”

As she said it, as the words drifted around my head, I began to see what she meant. It started to make sense in its own peculiar way. I could still remember what my objections had been just minutes ago, but now I could see how I had been mistaken.

Years later, after that documentary had won multiple awards and led to a career in the television industry which was nothing short of stellar, I remembered that conversation. I could see where everything in my life had fallen together at that point and taken a sharp turn away from its previous path.

All of the films and television series since then were stories I absolutely had to tell. And I could tell them, always. Somehow there was always a path forward through the Byzantine maze of the entertainment industry, and somehow I always got green-lighted.

By my side through it all was Kiara, always there with the right word or thought at the right time, always there to push me forward when I seemed to be bogged down. We were soul mates then, and we still are. One of the elite, Hollywood power couples.

The next time you’re wondering why some people make it and some don’t, the next time you’re thinking some people are just lucky and get all of the breaks, remember this story. That is, remember it if we allow you to.

It’s not luck. It’s fate.

It’s magic.

Leave a comment

Filed under Writing