writer's blog

2003-06-24T19:45:00.000-07:00

Okay. Recently reading _Year's Best SF 7_, I came upon a time-travel story.

Time-travel stories are some of my favorites, not only because you can get the interconnected feel of things that I believe underlies most events, but also because they're just neat. Typically things end up wrapped up in a neat (possibly impossible, but neat) little package, sort of a knot in the middle of a long, stretched line.

So my new idea borders on a Douglas Adams-style notion. There's a mass distortion which appears to have something to do with the timestream itself, which all but the Council (whatever the hell I'll call them this time) are forbidden to disrupt.

Except, of course, for Carchin, the man who discovered the mindbending mathematics required to warp time without machinery. Carchin's discovery allowed the creation of the few time machines the Council uses, but it also gave Carchin the ability to step backwards in time.

Now, Carchin's not a fool. He knows that mucking with the timestream is serious business, what with paradox and all. He would only use it for trivial effects or a very, very good cause.

He has no good causes, and, predictably, has discovered possibly the most trivial effect ever. He uses it to extend happy hours and prevent last calls.

Some lackey of the Council's been sent to speak with Carchin, because of the distortions which are occurring and are localized around the planet Carchin calls home, our dear Earth. He speaks with him, determines that Carchin has told no one, and proceeds to try to speak with the Council. Due to interference, Carchin's evening plans are destroyed and he spends the night working with the lackey. Council messages back later the next day, good work lackey, the distortion's not increasing any more. Lackey doesn't know why. Carchin goes back out, distortion begins to increase again.

Lackey decides to convince Carchin that he's given up, and he's free for the evening. Following Carchin from bar to bar, he realizes the trick and realizes further what's happening -- mass is being unevenly distributed in the timestream due to Carchin's beverage intake.

Carchin's drinking is causing temporal catastrophe, if you can believe that.

Anyway, I think a humorous conclusion to this should be easy. Perhaps a letter: "I've taken up heroin. It would appear to be safer."

Ugh, too dark.

Ah, well, I'll figure something out with it.

2003-02-12T23:22:00.000-08:00

First, a quote from _The Princess Bride_:

"When I was your age, television was books!"

As odd as it sounds, the truth drips from the statement -- in the days when you did not have the ability to turn on someone else's visual representation of what they want to convey, you had to learn to do it yourself, and a lot of people got good at it, I suspect.

Anyway, I didn't come here to prattle on about how mediums affect stories (that's for another post, surely) but instead the topic of _The Princess Bride_. I love this movie. I love the concept and the execution and the whole ball of wax. There's nothing unlikeable about the film -- excellently executed characters, plots that are organic to the story despite the enormous leaps and bounds made in the name of mistaken identity and extraordinary chances, dual stories that wrap around each other perfectly well and provide bizarre contrasts (the "fairy tale" is almost more believable than the "real life" story that it's told in -- the kid and grandfather with no names and stereotypical responses compared to the swordsman, wandering lover, egotistical henchman, etc., who all have interestingly original responses).

2003-02-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

New efforts, both on the IF front and the novel frontier. I've been reading Lawrence Block's _Writing The Novel: From Plot To Print_ and _Telling Lies For Fun And Profit_. Both have pushed a few of my novelization buttons, so I've been feeling the urge to lay a few things down here and there, and have actually considered (horrors!) going back to my old Russell and Mouse stories (which I may well attempt to post excerpts from here, should I find the ambition).

Next up -- I've been working on a not-altogether-original idea (aren't they all?) for an IF game. You start at the end, with all the items and such that you're supposed to have, and a backwards-running clock. You have to put everything where it's supposed to go before the starting time, then you play through and get through the game to win. :D

2003-01-25T17:11:00.000-08:00

The real key to the backwards novel is using what _Memento_ used: Careful interleaving of present and past tense. Memento uses the b-n-w scene between the backwards scenes to provide both a running explanation of the issues surrounding Leonard Shelby; something else, something similar and jarringly different from the backwards-running scenes should be used as buildup to the final scene at the end of the novel (and the beginning of the day).

Maybe the main character should suicide at the temporal end.

2003-01-25T07:46:00.000-08:00

Okay -- a thought. A backwards novel -- start with the end of the day, when everything's ruined and over, and work backwards. Might be interesting.

2002-07-22T11:57:00.000-07:00

James Bond at 50 http://www.kuro5hin.org/print/2002/7/15/16126/6536

2002-07-18T22:52:00.000-07:00

A concept that I'm not even certain is executable as a storyline: Various pressures convince government bodies to take action to prevent reckless/stupid procreation -- modification of genitals until sexual activity requires extreme intelligent behavior, perhaps with implanted switches that activate upon the solution of puzzles or whatnot.

This is some fucked up right here... :\

2002-07-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

The concept falls to me in midst of heat-death: Why wouldn't people chase weather after technology reaches a sufficient point that a significant portion of them can indulge every single stupid little whim? If they truly despise the heat, they could never again see a summer day.

They'd be called winter-chasers, or summer-chasers (I doubt seriously that fall-chasers and spring-chasers would exist, but it's possible, I guess). The concept is simple: You own four homes, two pairs of diametrically opposite homes. When the weather starts to change to a season you don't like, you fly to the next home.

Some people would get all the homes furnished identically, and there would be little psychological side effects of that (most notably interaction with Seasonal Affective Disorder statistics), and there would be parasitic behaviors that arise from the situation (more housesitters, burglars who target weatherchasers, etc.).

2002-06-18T23:57:00.000-07:00

Note to self: Perhaps the Clinic idea could be pretty well implemented as an Inform-engine or TADS-engine game? Take another look at introductory Inform materials, determine viability.

2002-06-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

I almost feel ready to write again. Almost.

I've been reading good fiction in the meantime, preparing for the flood. Mostly gorgeous descriptive stuff by Emily Short and interesting idea-styled fiction from Adam Cadre.

That is all.

2002-05-17T22:07:00.000-07:00

As the IRC turns...

***chaoticset*** Who here has seen _Memento_?
***Goonigoogoo*** me me me
***Angels_Requiem*** Otnemem
***Goonigoogoo*** this is the movie, right?
***chaoticset*** I was thinking...those "address book/to-do list/reminder" implants they keep talking about having...
***Technogen*** http://www.mrbang.net/oldajax.gif now thats MY KIND OF GUN***
***chaoticset*** ...those are the kind of people they'd test it on, people who have no ability to make new memories.
***chaoticset*** The head-PDA would act as their new memory.
***chaoticset*** They could leave themselves notes like "You're at the bar where the accident happened", or shit like that...
***chaoticset*** ...so I was thinking of writing a story like that, where a guy kind of realizes that's the state he's in. He's left himself a bunch of notes, and he's got a PDA in his head, and stuff keeps happening to him. Memento with cyberware.
***Goonigoogoo*** ooooh
***Technogen*** chaoticset there is a guy taht has the data I need to make an interface to cybernetics.
***Angels_Requiem*** push it a little more CS
***chaoticset*** ...I was thinking *maybe* have it be a rudimentary AI
***Goonigoogoo*** and his batteries could run out halfway through the story, so he has to quickly replace the batteries or something before he loses all his memories again
***Angels_Requiem*** a machine burns the memories into his mind for him
***Angels_Requiem*** this machine takes alot of juice though and is taxing on his physical state
***chaoticset*** ...what happens if his head gets hacked?
***chaoticset*** :)
***Angels_Requiem*** so hehas only about 30 minutes of memories per day and has to be selective
***Goonigoogoo*** he goes on a muderous rampage!
***Angels_Requiem*** and if his head gets hacked he is fucked
***Goonigoogoo*** no! RAMPAGE! Raaaammmpppppaaaaaagggeee!
***chaoticset*** I hadn't gotten around to writing it...but there's no reason there couldn't be a rampage, too ;)
***Goonigoogoo*** wahoo!

2002-05-10T18:49:00.000-07:00

_The Quiet Room_ -- several people wake up inside a room, some of them are armed, some of them are restrained, etc., and the only question is why they're there and who they are -- because nobody can remember.

2002-05-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

I want to root through my archetypes book and see if I can find two suitable detectivy archetypes and a villainy one that fits the new story idea I'm noodling.

The idea is really kind of Seven-ish; sadistic, extremely smart killer who's living his own double life. The plan is kind of experimental; if I leave it as a pure-detective story for the first 1/4 or 1/3, then start giving fair insight into the killer's life, the audience can slowly be made to empathize with him. It's something that may leave a bad taste in their mouth, but that's sort of the point.

2002-05-06T09:50:00.000-07:00

The door opened suddenly between the two security guards, chuckling to themselves, and the smell of blood was obvious to both of them immediately. A figure in a long black overcoat came through, backwards, and fired the dual silenced pistols three times apiece, three bullets tearing into the faces of each guard. Their bodies slumped to the floor, and the figure went through the door again, retrieved a metallic briefcase, and walked swiftly to the edge of the building. His movements were practiced and precise.

He got to the edge, dropped the briefcase, and walked away; by the time it hit, he was a quarter of the way across to the other side of the building. Once reaching it, he jumped over the ledge gracefully.

2002-04-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

Grunting could be heard as the sun looked directly into the man’s eyes. Under normal circumstances, he’d look away from the sun, but his load was too precarious for him to look anywhere but the direction he was going. Sand shifted uneasily under him, making the progress slow, but it was progress nonetheless.
The corpse shifted slightly from the fireman’s carry position, as if still alive.
How he would laugh, thinking of a still-moving corpse. The thought came to him between his own mind urging himself upwards, upwards. Up to the dirt.
He was at the edge of the desert they had been lost in, now.
He’d probably laugh at that too.
Finally, at the edge of the soil, he slung the corpse forward and fell to his knees, all in one motion, and collected himself for a few minutes. The sun still burned in his eyes, but he had work to do.
He got the shovel out, and it was obvious from any reasonable distance that he was digging a grave.

2002-03-31T01:37:00.000-08:00

It's snippet time!

"But," he continued, "that's not the kind of problems that people like me have. Oh, no. Cautious types don't have sweeping, broad, 'you didn't realize life was really so wonderful' problems. Nope. We get run over by trucks. When we have a problem, it hits us at a hundred miles per hour and we just happened to have all the resources to get back up, dust ourselves off, and walk home.

"We still get hit."

He looked at me one last time, and walked off.

I see that at then end of a story where a guy realizes he might not be straight at all -- but the resulting confusion and problematic reaction he has to that revelation results in him not being able to talk to the man who made him realize it.

Enh, call me repressed if you want. I already know I'm not straight. I'm just not gay either. *shrug*

2002-03-06T15:23:00.000-08:00

I did in fact devour _JFK, UFOs, and Elvis_. Great piece of work here, and I plan on actually reviewing the book in a few days, just because it's really sharp. My estimate of Richard Belzer as a person was fairly high already, because I always like people with a good sense of humor; it's ratcheted up a few notches now because he's also damn smart.

Anyway, like I said, I'll deal with it then. Not here, though, in my regular blog.

2002-03-06T07:13:00.000-08:00

I have this story idea I've been noodling around for a few years now; I keep figuring it would make a better graphic novel than a novel novel, or movie instead of a novel novel. The hard bit is that writing a novel novel takes free time, and in theory anybody can do it; writing a movie takes the same, but getting it made is a cast iron bitch. One that I probably couldn't manage to break.

I keep noodling it, though, because I'm hoping that someday I'll either get hooked up with an illustrator who's looking for ideas (Chao knows I'm full of ideas and brown stuff) or else I'll finally manage to score a camera and I'll be able to shoot the film. Probably the former is more likely, but the latter could happen, you never know.

The story is fairly simple; if you need it in a nutshell, imagine ER combined somehow with X-Files. The basic idea (and this changes a little sometimes, so don't quote me) is that several doctors (and a few oddballs, such as a conspiracy researcher who's familiar with alien anatomy and that sorta thing) are dragged into working a clinic where all the patients are mentally ill but also psychically able. I mean, hey, pyrokinetics need hugs too. ;) Seriously, though, I see several patients they have to begin with being (in no particular order) a boy with a real imaginary friend (nobody can see it, but his imaginary friend brings him things, hurts people, etc.), a psychotic who has an odd tendency to produce a doppelganger who's not psychotic at all and occasionally bilocate; a man who claims to be from another, similar universe and has the DNA and lack of fingers to back it up -- and is obsessed with the first person he ever saw coming into our universe.

That's the first couple issues or the first movie right there, I think.

I threw a few characters together earlier, and if they seem promising, maybe I'll write a few _Clinic_ stories and submit them. My sister keeps telling me to submit my old series -- the Russell and Mouse stories -- but they're just not clean enough yet. I should find them and work them over.

2002-03-02T20:55:00.000-08:00

I used to stride through Borders and imagine what my first book would look like. I still do, but not often.

I did tonight.

The things I imagine myself doing -- some of them -- seem so much closer; the software and the games I want to work on, the degree I want, and the life I want.

But my books -- my books, I had several series of books in my mind's eye -- seem farther and farther away.

The worst bit is that I can't ever seem to find a book to buy any more. The time of "I need this book, and only this book", purchasing it as my one book a month, and devouring it are gone. The net has invaded my life. I feel cheap (not cheap as in petty about money, but cheap as in somehow lacking value) when I look at a book that someone has poured some of their life into, look at a US$30.00 price tag, and figure, "Enh, I can get about 3/4ths of this in less readable form on the net."

So the trick is less that I can't find stuff any more to read and be interested in; it's that I lack the motive force to go and read it, to go and understand it.

The truly worrisome part, to me, is just how dependant I am on dead-tree reading materials. I have started to truly Learn Perl, but it's only because I own a paper copy of _Learning Perl_ and a paper copy of _Perl In A Nutshell_. The other five books, the ones on my _Perl Bookshelf_ CD, are essentially reference materials.

I used to draw no distinction between a reference material and a book meant to be read straight through. I would sit and browse novels, leaping from chapter to chapter; I would take time to read an entire volume of my father's _Britannica_ cover to cover. It was irrelevant to me how they were supposed to be read; I just read them, voraciously, dragging all the goddamn understanding I could from them.

I don't do that any more. I should. Lord knows it's not that my attention span has become shorter; if anything it's become much, much longer. This is saying something. It's just that -- somehow -- I mentally draw a distinction between what I see on a screen and what I read on a piece of paper.

It is -- barring physical elements -- a meaningless distinction.

So I throw a challenge to myself in here. Make Yourself Devour Your New Book Soon. I bought a copy of Richard Belzer's _UFOs, JFK and Elvis_, because I figured I could trick myself into thinking it was merely light entertainment. It isn't, and I know that; I read a chapter or two in Borders once before when I was there.

I'll devour it, if I'm not a complete puss.