Odyssey, Day Four

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DAY FOUR - Four Suns, One System: All Sexy

David Barron is probably on his way back from the Void-Forest of Boredom. Within this can be found the Arcolo-Gypsies, whose ancient space magic binds the universe together in messy clumps of Dareerariarn. If we humans knew what this element was, we'd be a lot farther ahead in our understanding of the cosmos.

Hey-shucks, at least we have universities for women now. Progress!

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250 words?

Book "Lived Too Long To Die"

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Reading - ?

Odyssey, Day Three

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DAY THREE - Silly Whales (Stop Being Silly)

David continues his dense symbolist epic into the Unknown. Today's question: Could a flock of penguins conceivably take down and devour a single grizzly bear? What if the bear were depressed? What if the penguins were the Morlocks to the bear Eloi in a complex future society?

"Waddle," say the penguins.

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250 words? 

Book "Lived Too Long To Die"

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Reading - "The Time Machine" (H.G.Wells)

Odyssey, Day Two

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DAY TWO - Columbus Makes Dumb Riddles

David Barron is discovering brave new doldrums in  the middle of nowhere. He'll be back in three days. Once upon a time in three days, more like. Hoo!

[insert original two cents joke here]

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250 words?
Book "Lived Too Long To Die"
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Reading - ?

Odyssey, Day One

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DAY ONE - Gentlemen's Party

David Barron is Elsewhere in SE Asia engaged in Undisclosed Activities. Or is he on the Moon? No. Is he dead? Almost certainly not. When will he be back? Four Days.

That's one small step for better blogging through less content.

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250 words?
Book "Lived Too Long To Die"
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Reading - "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" (Stieg Larsson)

Robots

"ROBOTS! Robots have no mercy..." - Stephen Colbert

I like robots, in every shape and form. From the lowliest deathbot serving drinks at a party after being made obsolete to the highest computer brain who has a whole universe in its mind...Our Universe? (Dun dun DUN!)
Don't worry [12-year old protagonist] Timmy [who is the only one who can talk to me, Brainbot]! Robots never forget...how to Rock 'n Roll! Oh, and it turns out you're a robot, too. Neat.*

*This nano fiction brought to you by Science. A better world for fashion can be yours.

Anyways, robots. Avatars of the developing human consciousness, sloppy metaphor for racism, implacable killing machines, they're the vision of an awesome future that just won't quit. And if you can convince your readers that it's bad to kill robots, you can convince them of anything.

Bonus: Unlike aliens, robots were probably pre-programmed to have human characteristics! So you don't have to cheat and humanize them. Of course, if you don't humanize them, they're zombies. But that's another post.

Ending on a potentially unpopular note: I liked the "I, Robot" movie starring Will Smith. Just sayin'!

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For the next couple days, I will be voyaging into the jungle mists in search of Adventure and Negotiable Currency. It'll be fun, and it's too bad you can't come with me because then we'd have a party. Right now, we only have a wizard. But don't worry, I've set up the Internet to automagically update this here blog with some lazy posts. So if you liked this sort of thing, you'll double like that sort of thing because there'll be less talking.

"Mr. Christian, I want the nano-sails reformatted, stat!"

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500 words? Yes
Book "Lived Too Long To Die"
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Reading - "Beyond Lies The Wub" (Philip K. Dick)

Aliens

I don't like aliens in my science fiction.

From a "science" standpoint, it seems the odds are against even two advanced space-faring civilizations existing in the same section of a galaxy at the same time. Even allowing FTL travel or hyperspace or jump points doesn't improve the odds that much.

From a "fiction" standpoint, I'm writing stories for human consumption. I've found that a lot of 'alien' characters are 'humanized', given human characteristics so the reader can empathize. I'll just save time and make them human. The range of human emotion is sufficiently broad to encompass Spock and Kirk (and McCoy). And if they need a special physical characteristic? This is science fiction, they're transhuman!

I'm leaving open a special category of science fiction where a sufficiently advanced scientist world-builds aliens that make sense and a sufficiently advanced writer makes them interesting  This category is specifically designed for "The Mote In God's Eye. (And of course setting up this category means that I am now obligated to try and write a science fiction story with aliens in it.)

I love aliens in my Space Opera.

Competing sub-galactic empires, spaceships, crazy plots, morality plays, political scheming, magic, sword-fights. Hot Alien Babes and Dudes. It's Space, people! And it's an ocean and there are space dogfights and crowded asteroid belts. But I'm still drawing a line at Stealth In Space. That's right out, no matter how soft it gets. Unless it's funny.

Go get 'em, space-tiger. Go get 'em dead.

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The Huns are attacking! Oh the terror! They came on horseback and on foot to pillage and to plunder. We sent our armies in an array to meet them on the field, and with the dust of hardest fighting clear, we all looked at the sight with wonder. Why were we so worried, for what were these mere primitives in the face of our light-bows?

Firing a projectile as long as I am wide, easily piercing the armor from both or either side. Then digging deep down, into the corpse's flesh, with a pain most elegant: the soul to find, caress.

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500 words? Yes
Book "Lived Too Long To Die"
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Reading - TBD

The Story of Layla

I've begun to notice myself falling into a certain pattern in the short stories I write, and I think I can finally recognize it as a rough version of the basic pattern of short stories I enjoy to read.

But why bore you with an outline when there's some quality music waiting for us?

Let's listen to the best version of Eric Clapton's "Layla":



And now the short story outline with time-stamps:

:00 Anticipation
The medium, the layout, the title
The short, quick sketch of the setting and character
The reader is prepared for...

:37 Blam!
The shock, the hook.
It catches people by surprise or awe.
The reader is dragged willingly into the...

1:04 Plot
Here's what's going on.
Here's the conflict
Here's what's gonna happen...

2:53 Awesome
Action! Adventure! Sex! Victory!
And then...

3:55 Take a Breath
What next? Right...

4:10 Let's Get Serious
The meat course arrives.
Characters develop, challenge and are challenged, overcome or are overcome.
Now the writer has wrest out every last bit of Good Stuff from the story, which like all things good must...

7:30 End
A little bit of meaning, a morsel of resolution.
A theme capped off, and a hearty...

7:58 "Thank You!"

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This Writing blog will be posted every day at 6PM (my time) with a word count goal? Yes/No/OK as well as quick status update for the day's projects. Below that will be whatever book I happen to be reading at the moment. The content of the blog itself will be almost entirely about Writing.

Along with whatever absurd ideas needs to be skimmed off the top of my head that day. These may or may not relate to the daily picture and label.

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2000 words? Yes

Short Story "Pure Humanity" - finished, submitted

Flash "Preemptive Mercy" - finished, submitted
Book "Lived Too Long To Die" - chapter twelve
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Reading - "On The Road" (Jack Kerouac)