Secret in the Box

The last word of the first draft of Secret in the Box was typed at about 1:50 the morning of Monday, June 11th, 2012, the year the Mayans destroyed the universe...whew...I know that this is really just the beginning of this story, because editing is going to be a nightmare.  It certainly not the story I had originally envisioned.  I had in mind a much shorter, compact story, very fast, very compact, with some very direct messages.  I still want to get back to that, but at the moment I have what amounts to a teen coming of age epic of just shy of 100,000 words, which...okay, most books that are out now, your Harry Potter's and your Game of Thrones, tend to be longer...but its still not a small thing.  With the norm 250 words/page, it'd come out to right around 380 pages.  But, of course, even though people like longer books, I really feel I should be able to tell this story in 200-250 pages...in fact, right where I think I should be approaching the end, suddenly it turns out I'm halfway done...well, no, it only feels that way.  Its actually closer to 1/3-1/4 left at that point.  Still, I want it to be shorter.  I just feel it went on too long, got too complex, and lost a lot of the naive charm that it originally had...honestly, I didn't want it to be 'coming of age' because he's not an adult, he hasn't come of age, he's just moved past one specific hurdle. Rewrite, fuck.

Woah is you

I jumped on it and wrote 2000 words last night in Box.  Ohhhhhh my goodness its all crap.  But the show must go on.  Somebody said that to finish a book you had to ruin it, and I'm pretty sure I'm almost finished.  Need something to entertain yourselves?

Booo hisss

Its already obnoxious to me when people conflate standard cultural norms for natural laws.  One of my great fears is that globalization will create such a homogenous culture that we wont' even be able to imagine a culture that is different from our own.  All history will be read through our cultural lens, and all the more narrowly because we are convinced that since it is the only culture that exists, it is the only culture that can possibly exist.

btw, passed 80k words in Secret in the Box.  Closer and closer to completion.

Back in the Saddle Again (1977)

That's right, I actually wrote some.  A pitance really, just 1500 words about today, but damn, its been forever and it feels good to be back at it.  I made some decisions in the story, and for now I just have to follow through and let what happens happen.  Some of my vision has had to change a little bit, but that's okay, its what needed to happen at this point.  Whoo, super excited though.  Just had to be okay with it maybe not being quite as magical as previous stuff and go.

We're definitely over the midpoint in Secret in the Box, no doubt, we're quickly moving through the second and final act.  I feel bad that the second act seems like its slower than the first, and maybe that is something I can fix later, but right now I just need that lightning bolt of inspiration to really get a kicker to cinch it all together.  Genius, don't fail me now!

A most Ridiculous Dream

Haven't had one this wacky in awhile...

The beginning is less clear.  So I'm in a mall type place, running around, climbing things, having fun...I get to some office part with lots of elevators and there's some dancing around to avoid being seen by the office workers/ogres or whatever they are.  I don't see them because I'm avoiding them, but I get the idea they're ogres.

I get stuck because I'm on a higher floor than I thought and the elevators are like video game elevators, they only go down like one floor at a time, then you have to find a new one.  I finally find my way back to the main mall and then skedaddle out of the place, being chased by an obnoxious bunch of teenagers, including a girl who keeps mocking me for some reason.  Some construction workers decide to come help me out and they start beating the shit out of the girl.  I try to help the girl, but she keeps on making fun of me anyway.

So I run off, and now I'm running around the outside of the mall, climbing, jumping, etc., and I come across one of my students.  He asks if he can go with me, because we're still kinda escaping something or other.  He's a bit dopey, but I let him come.  Well, almost as soon as he joins me we see this gigantic, feathery prehistoric bird flying around and it lands on a fence on an enclosure where its nest seems to be.  Its as big as an ostrich, covered in feathers, and has a mouth the size of a crocodile or bigger with lots of teeth.

I'm trying to be like, "Hey, Max, check out this bird, but he's already well behind and he's making calls to the bird.  I try to tell him to stop, because giant, prehistoric birds are clearly not to be toyed with, but he won't listen.  So I basically have to go back and drag Max away, but he's still making calls and the bird starts following us.

There's nothing around to use as a weapon except this flimsy, small soccer goal, so I carry that along with us and when the bird gets too close I smack it with the goal.  Pretty soon it starts to realize that I can't hurt it.  By this point, Jane Lynch (as Sue Sylvester, from Glee), is nearby and heckling us; I guess its her bird, and there's no way to get it to go away without killing one of us.

I tell Max to run off ahead, and I still try to keep the bird at bay, but I know its no use, so I give in, but only on the condition that Jane Lynch let me check on Max.  She agrees, and I start to go, but then she lamentably tells me, sorry, Max already got eaten.  I think he was eaten by the bird, but there was also apparently involvement from some miniature zombies, Jane Says.

There's nothing left of Max but scrapings.  I get furious, grab a hammer, and utterly wreck Jane Lynch until she's a puddle of goo.  There're some miniature zombies there.  Either they were in her head or on her key chain, but either way, I hammer them into little red bits. 

Then I woke up.

movin along...

Alrighty then, wrote some today.  hooray.  I'm at 60k words.  I'm not sure if what I'm writing is good, but there's something good about it.  Dream sequences are fun.

On another note, I've gotten some ideas for when I go back to Oraphan Cycle.  I need to read up on Genghis Khan.  

Bad comic blog number, uhhhhh...10. We'll start at 10

Its the Occupy Wallstreet Holiday Special!