Party On, Venusian Dudes!

Well happy Boxing Day, y'all, or as some say up here in the near north  "yuz all ". Let's start with dessert  shall we.  Yes, Carolyn, there is a Santa ...oops,. Yes Carolyn, you cracked this one squarely .  The answer is peanuts. Your riddle this time I think is cups (or mugs ). We even have a square one around here.  Just to keep things rollin' and riddlin' here's a couple more:

   Keeper of  symbols

Translator

Ammunition for those seeking erudition

The bigger the better

Cop before criminal

Sinner after saint

Dispute settler

**

 Associate with Monkeys

Accommodate Nuts

Mr. Goodwrench accomplice

Punishing guts

Messing up proceedings in simian mode

Work with jerks in tight situations

In an on and off relationship

Hang around in petroleum stations

Anyhow, before moving to the next course, I am sorta intrigued by this switching roles on Boxing Day thing you mentioned. I have never heard of that. Is it a kind of Sadie Hawkins thing or ??

Tis the season to be jolly  and  all that happy type stuff which includes reminiscing and contemplating as well. As there are no longer any young wide-eyed earthling offspring about to pounce on our bed at  Christmas sun up looking for gifties, and monopolize our attention from thence until bedtime, I can more easily scrounge up time to keep in touch right here on Boxing Day in the middle of the merriment. 

  In one of those ruminative moments granted by  this gracious state of advanced parenthood I  found myself pondering what this season could look like from elsewhere in the galaxy or universe.  There will come a time when we of earth will be going elsewhere ( see Dec. 12 entry ) and I imagine we'll take our traditions along for the trip.  I wondered how “ The Holidays “ would play out from a different planetary venue. Being a warmth junkie these days  only a planet closer to Ol' Sol  (or any ol "sol ) will do.


  With that  as my  rationale, Venus, sitting second to the sun, got my first nod.  There wouldn’t be a lot of clothes to pack. And no socks !! What if we were doing the holiday thing on Venus?  C’mon, the name alone is enough to get ones attention flowing. Venus the  goddess of love and beauty and leg shavers, the name of Steve Jobs humongous personal yacht,  and lotsa stuff like that -  everything I’ve read about it includes the word HOT. How could that be a bad thing?     

Guess I make a fifth-rate  Canadian since I’m not now, nor have I ever been a fan of quietly and politely freezing for at least half of the year.

Sure, Venus is a torrid, forbidding place and maybe even a lesson for us since its crispyfied state is apparently the result of a “ runaway greenhouse effect” ( haven’t I seen that term somewhere before? ) but in  the  future technological advances should be able to overcome that impediment.  Anyhow, from a holiday and partification standpoint here’s something that could counterbalance the wackload you're gonna spend on sunscreen while there.

A year on Venus amounts only 225 earth days so  Christmas is 140 of our  days sooner every year. So is New Years and everyone's birthday , Sounds cool for sure.   Seven months  after the last  once a year blowout another one is poised to pounce. That’s  almost two Black Fridays, two Thanksgivings and two last shopping days before Christmas scenarios every year!  

There is a trade-off though -  each “ day” on  Venus takes approximately 243 of our earth days to play out. A day is actually longer than a year ( no, this isn’t a Wormhole Electric riddle ! )  Can you even begin to get your cranium around a Christmas dinner and  evening gathering  with the extended family and in-laws  that unfolds over  two months? 

 Can you imagine a Monday every week that took 243 days to pass - of course there's an equally long Friday each week to balance things out and the weekend is actually 486 days long -  Ya  man, We be jamming’!

It would call for miraculous budgeting.  Getting paid every two weeks means about nine and a half years between checks.   It would also mean about 19 years between monthly bills.  What fiscal cliff ??   Back off China!  There be lotsa time to pony up the bucks.

It’s quite the paradox, but at least there’d be a nice warm place to try and work it out in. And, apologies to Dr. Suess , oh the parties you'll see!!

So, as we all move on thru this have-a-good-time season I leave you with this. I wish I'd said it but it's from one Mr. Vonnegut. I do agree with the sentiment..big time!

Don

The Hobbit, Serials and Riddles

Peanuts! The answer is peanuts! Oh please, let me be right.

I would never have guessed gravy – Here in the States we have a business called Subway Sandwiches which slathers sandwiches with oil. I remember having biscuits and gravy as a child, but that is so far from my current culinary diet that I had forgotten. It is interesting the differences between our cultures even though we share the same continent. I'm really curious about Boxing Day. I know that it is where people swap positions and responsibilities for a day. How does that work if you're not Lord of the Manor?

For my riddles, gold is correct for the first answer; for the second one, you were amazingly close, and I can see how travelers checks might fit … But what I had in mind was maps.

I saw the movie The Hobbit yesterday and in spite of what the critics said about a slow start, I was enthralled throughout the movie. Martin Freeman as Bilbo was a spot on choice. Gollem was incredible in the lake scene before he realizes he’s lost the ring; we see the different personalities of Gollem – beautifully done. I know there is a lot CGA , but its integration into the live action is seamless. My only regret is that it’s a serial! At least I don’t have to wait as long as I did for Harry Potter to be completed.

Serials! Some of our Wormhole writers specialize in them. O’Ryan Jackson’s Serpent Bearer series comes to mind. Each of the six stories stands alone, but when combined with the other five, they become an incredible book. It is whole and complete. And with an ending so different from the usual two or three endings most authors choose! And the ending makes sense – once you get there, you say, “Of course! How obvious! It has to be this way.”

Back a couple of posts ago, Don, you started sketching out a book idea about Earth after she is wrecked then abandoned. I saw some previews for two new movies due out next summer: After Earth with Will Smith; Oblivion with Tom Cruise. Both appear to have a similar concept to the idea you are working on. So, not to put the pressure on or anything, but getting your story out by next summer might be a great marketing move. You could write it as a serial, just a suggestion, no pressure here.

Christmas will be quiet for us this year - just dinner with adults. I’ve been working on an idea on how to make us a little more childlike. I found a kit called “Windup Workshop Robots” where you create your own robot with wiggly eyes, cutouts, and stickers all attached to a windup mechanism. I think maybe  robot races. are in order. Isn’t it interesting that even at Christmas time I’m thinking science fiction in some form or another. I’ve added action and adventure by having robot races. If nothing else, it should give us a giggle.

 

 

 

 

I hope that this finds all of you warm and safe, enjoying good companionship and food. Knowing that we have at least another year to live, I hope your upcoming year is satisfying.

 

Carolyn

 

 

Riddle for the week:

Just the right thing to hold first thing in the morning

Just the ticket for a goodnight slow down

Empty on the inside

Currently blue could be pink

Mine is round, his is square

Slim and tall, squat and plump

Wrap your hands around

And smell the liquid gold

 

 

Fab Four Hijacking

DISCLAIMER

Looking back over this item I realize that those cheeky lads from Liverpool have effectively commandeered and usurped  this weeks entry!  Carolyn, I guess  your going back to the music thing, especially something with one of the Fabs involved,  with a rabid Beatles fan such as myself  was tantamount to an offer I couldn't refuse - you’re possibly an accessory to this sliding off-topic misdemeanor , or at least involved in some aiding and abetting:



 I'd love to compare notes with you on the 121212 concert but I didn’t see it. So I  checked some reports and reviews afterwards- Let's hear it for YouTube!  The lineup was bulging, some were even saying conspicuously top-heavy, with aging classic rockers and some heirs apparent.  If I was assembling the playbill for a fundraiser, especially for NYC I guess I'd stack the deck with lotsa native or adopted sons/daughters and my target demographic would be those complacent, couch-ridden baby-boomers with wallets swelled by a lifetime of successful slogging away in the “establishment”      ( does anyone actually still use or even recognize that once derisive term - other than Jack Black? )  So bulking up on Boomer rockers makes economic sense, I guess.  Kanye West was probably a nod to any  bling-encrusted hip-hoppers who might have tuned in. 


Sir Paul simply turns up everywhere lately it seems. Richer than Croesus, Donald Trump and the King of Saudi Arabia combined he obviously still does it because he needs to be up front of an audience.


I  confess that I am  3/4 of a fanatic in matters of John, Paul George and Ringo. I have a whole wall of my basement devoted to them and half a bookcase of books about them, many reread.  Of all the Fabs Paul was my least favourite simply because he seems as disingenuous as he is talented.   Alas, in the clips I saw of his go round with the temporarily reassembled Nirvana his years were showing. If he had the same voice chops he had when he recorded Helter-skelter it would have been killer. I may not have any real fan affection for him but I cannot deny his prodigious talents. He may be the Citizen Kane of Rock .

Lennon may well have been a right prick occasionally  ( fairly occasionally, it seems )  and much more neurotic and capricious than his once partner but he was also not one to sugar-coat or  do the hidden agenda thing. He totally spoke his head up front, ( War can be over if we want it!  ) and I think that’s why he’s probably the Beatle of choice for a simple majority of fans. Also,  Mark David Chapman’s gunning down of Lennon is one of the few things I can think of that make me  reconsider capitol punishment - he robbed us of so much !   BTW  if you’ve not seen it I highly recommend  “ Nowhere Boy”  (2009)  a great little movie about the early years of John Lennon.      

 Honestly, I’m trying to put the Beatles soapbox away as we speak/blog.



No, this has absolutely nothing to do with Sci-fi or Fantasy.  In fact I can’t even think of any songs that the Fabs put out that had any  major sci-fi connection. Maybe there's a wee bit of fantasy in "Maxwell’s Silver Hammer". I suppose  their guileless forays into Eastern philosophy,precipitated in part by George Harrisons initial infatuation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,  could be seen as fantastical in a way since they dabbled in spacey stuff like cosmic consciousness, TM and supposed powers of levitation. If anything,  the music that came from Lennon and McCartney through these adventures was reactionary - The White Album’s “ Sexy Sadie” was apparently originally to be titled “ Maharishi”  It was a Lennon composition and hardly hid his disdain for someone who claimed to have the answers but turned out, for him at least,  to be a religious flim-flam man. Gee, not too many of those about, are there!



So now to the even gooder stuff - the riddles! Carolyn, your guess for my first one was as you say “ darn close. “  It’s not grease but gravy - I thought the consorts openly with sandwiches part would be a gastronomic giveaway but maybe open faced sandwiches all slathered with gravy aren’t a culinary thing where you are like they are here. 

 I’d never even heard of poutine until I went to Quebec, either. 


The second one, all three verses of it, wasn’t  a political campaign but its certainly a crucial part of one. Once again you were powerfully close. It was advertising.  My apologies for the  wretched excess of clues here   ( Jeez, Gollum would have fallen asleep faced with this one, eh?)  but my M.O. for new things ( like this riddling addiction) usually includes simply overindulging in them right off  and then pulling back to find a happy medium.  Ya have to sin in order to be redeemed , I’ve been told.   This is a prime example thereof.


My guesses for yours are  gold for the first one and travelers cheques for the second: ( Hmmm, I'm not completely sure about that second item! )


Here’s just one this time ( I can’t promise to limit myself this way in the future, though )

Brittle

Work for me and be poorly rewarded

Buttery

Pachyderm dreams

Ballpark maintenance nightmares

Crucial to Crackerjack experience

Anyhow, I’ve spent so much wordage on this  Beatles stuff  that I’ve used up my dance card here. Again!



Back on boxing day. Keep a cool tool 'til the Yule!



Don

Concerts, Music and riddles

Before I get too far into this blog, I’d like to revisit music. I watched the 121212 concert on Wednesday night. These were my favorite musicians and groups for many years. However, this time I found the music to be frenetic; it didn’t sit as well with me as it has in the past. But the musical talent is still strong! I marveled at the guitar riffs, the drumming cadences… Magnificent! I was a bit disappointed in the new and upcoming possible replacements – the newbies on the circuit seem to be lacking talent. They can sing (okay, some of them can) and they strutt nicely which thrills the audience, but musical talent? Playing the same six cords over and over in the same key and rhyming that seemed to miss the beat just somehow does not translate to talent in my mind. It was great to see my old favorites can still draw crowd. I’m not sure I want to call them “old” though, it dates me.

As for the riddles, I finally was able to put this last quarter to bed. All students are signed, sealed, and delivered to their next level of education. Some, through lack of priority or maybe different priorities, will be repeating.

These are your riddles, Don, and my guesses:

Smooth at times, coarse at others

Runs a away or sticks around

Moves in trains and boats and comes alive with skillet and pots

Sometimes consorts openly with sandwiches

My guess: oil or grease

The next 3 are all one riddle - so I've been told:  

Not quite a lie

Not quite the truth

Subtle or simple

refines or uncouth
 

Asking for money

Playing on fears

Promising happiness

Coaxing out tears

 

Where there is nothin

Creating a need

Nurturingjealousy

Fostering greed

This so exemplifies government - so my guess is a presidential or political campaign 

 

 

Don, as far as writing is concerned, sounds like you have an interesting premise for your maiden write into the author world. I’m looking forward to being one of the editors as this unfolds.

 

My own tale has taken a backseat to students and editing the scribblings of others. I just finished the final edit on the latest Captain Jackson series. I’m impressed with how Zach has managed to weave into the story the historical significance of the places he’s traveled to so far. I’m curious about whether or not the Bosnian Pyramids will show up in the next installment. Colby crossed my screen with a new Stay-At-Home Dad adventure. I can’t wait to read the tweaked story due to be published in January. I heard from another of our writers; he has two ideas cooking. One idea keeps trying to lead him into “book writing”. He’s resistant… I wonder who’ll win.

 

I find that denied creativity usually leads to long frustrating hours for me; if I’d just give in to the impulse, I’d be much happier. Creativity sometimes just does not understand priorities; life does not always want to compromise, so the standoff continues. I’ve discovered that riddles are a great way to keep my creativity simmering on the front burner.

 

I’ve set my story aside for the moment, another “idea” popped up I want to flesh it out over the next few weeks to see if it is viable. Even if it isn’t, it will at least allow me the luxury of research and synthesis – both of which will make my writing better in the end. Not so sure my characters are in agreement - we'll see how long the stand off lasts and who wins in the end...

 

Okay, here are two riddles back at you:

Dull in the ground

When found

Bright in the light

Chuncky flaky heavy

Owning a lot is 

Cash in hand

 

 

World at a glance

Blluse white brown

Pressed into paper

Rolled folded

A treasured need for travel  

 

Well, time to complete Christmas shopping and wrapping presents.

Carolyn

 

PS

Yesterday I tried to work on the non-fiction piece I've been considering; characters won. I've denied them for too long. Ah well, it felt good to get back to my writing.

CV 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cart, Bag or Basket - pick your ride!

That nascent story I’m currently kicking and nudging around in the  infant writer’s sandbox pivots on the idea that the world has, for all practical purposes, ceased to function. It has not perished in a cataclysmic natural event or been hijacked and systematically looted of resources by intergalactic conquerors, but simply driven into the ground by it's most intelligent inhabitants. It was a great chariot when it rolled off the showroom floor. It carried us comfortably, even luxuriously, through the solar system for a long and good time. But we fudged on the regular servicing and bickered about the costs of preventive maintenance. So now  it's just a junkyarded jalopy that gets scavenged of any remaining useful parts by multi-national  companies in collusion with interplanetary salvagers.

Since this tale unfolds mainly in the cadaverous world that persists after we humans have squandered its essences through our  negligence and ignorance of the warnings from those who devote their lives to the study such things, it'll be tough not to be polemic. But this is intended to be something distinctly removed from a cautionary tale. In fact there is no  suffer the consequences part. In the midst of this wholesale and multi-century frittering away process, interplanetary travel on a large scale becomes feasible and we get to leave without cleaning up our mess.( Yep, there's forensic evidence of Neil Young's " After the Gold Rush" in this).

 But sometimes the most seemingly innocuous things call a few of us back.

 

 So....  unless those inscrutable Mayans were right and a week Friday is all we get, I was figuring, as I fleshed out these setting type  things, that  I needed to familiarize myself more  with  the plausibility angle on this  " end of the world as I see it " setting element.  In the process of exploring how such a thing could actually happen I saw mucho, maybe even too mucho,  out there on the web. It was one of those  just scratch the surface things alright.

  BTW - My better half and I spent a few days in and around the city of Merida on the Mayan Peninsula last Feb  and most of the people who live by the tourist trade find this calendar phenomenon to be a welcome and  increasingly lucrative one.  Everything that you could imagine was to be found somewhere in the shopping areas festooned with likenesses of that stony circular calendar. Propriety prevents me from repeating the phrase that accompanied its presence on each sheet of a roll of bathroom tissue found in one shop. 



 Investigating the ruins of that once magnificent culture is one of the few things I’ve ever done that gave me an almost otherworldly feeling. I look forward to returning this year for more of the same.

The most likely chain of events leading to the end of the world ain’t the best seasonal topic, for sure.  It  gets ominously engrossing at times. I'm far from becoming a Greenpeace Guerrilla but it's really an endless smorgasbord of food for thought .. 

 Traditionally, there's been a choice of rides to transport us and our home planet to this sad end. A handcart, hand basket or handbag are all cited in various places and at various times as the apparent vessel for the trip. I’m opting for the handcart myself as it sounds to be the most sturdy and comfortable of the three. 

  Yesterday,quite by accident, or maybe serendipitiously, my attention was drawn to the closing  lines of " Requiem"  a poem  by  Kurt Vonnegut.  In my very cursory survey of info and opinions relating to how we are treating this place and where that's taking us, it might make a nice postscript :

" When the last living thing has died on account of us, how poetical it would be if Earth could say, in a voice floating up perhaps from the floor of the Grand Canyon, ' It is done. People did not like it here.''

While we're talking about world halting events Carolyn, I doubt I can fully communicate my sense of disappointment at there being no riddlin" to ingest from your last entry, - he said, tongue securely planted in cheek.  I remember all too well the end of term marking gauntlet even though I've not run it for four years. If I forget there's my daughter's laments in her e-mails and regular chit-chats to keep the idea front and centre as well. So we'll leave last week's riddles up for another go.

 I haven't forgotten  though that you are the one who first unveiled the riddle carrot for me  and I haven't been able to stop chasing it since!

Don

Sherlock, Poirot and, sigh, no riddle

Don, I am so sorry that I forgot to tell you the answer to my last riddle - the one that said clickety clack whir hum… You guessed right it was the electric typewriter. And no, the answer to  my latest riddle is not an old-fashioned jukebox, but you are darn close – it’s a multi-stack CD player. Carpet? Hadn’t ever thought of bald carpet before, but I do know when I step on it.

 

 

I have to apologize. I have been focusing on solving the riddles of the final papers of my students and I have not had time or the energy to write a new riddle or to solve the ones you gave. Please leave them up for another week so I can take a shot at them.

 

Hound of the Basketballs? What an interesting fantasy that would make! If it's done from first person from the dog's point of view - what a story that would make!

 It’s interesting that you should talk about Canon Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. I’ve never, gasp, truly enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes stories. But I do have to admit that I thoroughly enjoy the new Sherlock Holmes movies and the Sherlock Holmes TV series called Elementary. Personally, I was more of an Agatha Christie fan. Hercule Poirot is a favorite in this house. I remember hearing a comment that Agatha Christie hated Poirot because of his attention to detail. I have an old copy of Agatha Christie’s Murder in Retrospect on my desk. When I’m fumbling around for words, plot, deceit, I’ll read a little bit of one of the stories; it seems to help me focus.

I’m in the process of writing the rough draft for my latest Tracker story. I’ve been struggling with the point of view – so far it’s been written in third person, but the more I read it, and the more I edited, I realize that first-person is the way to go. So sometime in the next couple of weeks, I will be rewriting 20 some odd pages that I’ve got done so far. I’ve noticed that first-person will cut out a lot of the explanation I have going on which seems to be dragging the story down.

 I followed a blog off twitter by Veronica Sicoe on point of view – she talked a bit about tension coming from immediate experience in the first-person point of view while in third person the reader gets to witness a clash of perspectives. She talks about how point of view “offers the reader a way to experience the world differently than he does every day, ”and how it affects experience of the reader. Even though Sherlock Holmes is written in third person omniscient, I always felt information was left out; that it was even withheld from the omniscient point of view. Poirot, however, is third person. The focus is on the actions and behaviors of the characters which make it feel more real. For me, even if the character is off world as in science fiction , I need to be able to relate to them. I guess I’m one of those touchy-feely type people – I want to be able to empathize or have compassion for the characters.

Well, it is time to get back to the grading.

Have a good week, everyone.

Carolyn

Advert: Just a Reminder!
Transports 13, 15 and 16 are free through Amazon until December 12!
And! The In The Beginnings: the first serials of the books we're showcasing this month is a free download through our website:
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The books are: The Long Patrol - a Captain Jackson Adventure; The Serpent Bearer; The Family Forge; The Organized Seer -
You can buy the books through Amazon.com and AmazonUK.com. You can connect through the website or buy directly on Amazon.  

Elementary my dear Edgar - and a double hit of riddlin'

Once upon a time, in the first year of the two I spent in Grade Nine English (" Freshman " year for those south of the  49th ) I found myself at the incoming end of an interrogative missile from Sister Mary Vigilance (I  forgot her real name) about the novel the class was  reading- Arthur Conan Doyle's  The Hound of the Baskervilles. She fixed me with her lizardous glare,( She could have been a tech consultant for the "V" series!), and asked something about something in chapter whatever.  At the ripe old age of 13, I was simply too swamped with puberty, peer  pressure, looking cool, acting cool, The Montreal Canadiens  and this absolutely fantastic and fabulous new group from England - The Beatles, to keep up with schoolish things.

 She had me cold!   "No way out? Go for the laughs !", I told myself. 

"This is about  The Hound of the Basketballs book isn't it?" I wryly inquired, immediately eyeing  the room  to see if my schtick was clickin'.





 That was the first time I got  kicked out of class in high school. Apparently it was an egregious enough transgression at Catholic Central  in 1963 that, after being called upon the carpet in the Principal's Office, I was handed a city bus ticket and sent home  for the rest of the day.   A call was made to presage my arrival. Mom was the only one there, thank goodness   When I got home she simply said "I think you should start reading that Sherlock Holmes book". She then told me that my dad, whose wrath I steadfastly struggled to avoid incurring, so enjoyed him that he had a hard-bound copy of the complete works which he kept in a special drawer where most folks would have kept The Bible, Shakespeare or maybe The Kama Sutra.  I did use the rest of my banishment to read about the basketball dog and more. It was my first dose of Mystery writing and  it was good. It didn't grab me like Science Fiction but it was a strong supporting act.

I still can conjure up vividly the image of that hound loping across the misty moors. I live on the edge of a wide swath of forest. Some nights when its foggy and the coyotes or coy-dogs are howling  and gallivanting about I wonder:

 "Could one of them be the Hound of the Basketballs?"

 I was actually disappointed when I saw the old B&W Basil Rathbone flick one Friday  night shortly thereafter. The pictures I had from the text were, of course, more graphic and engrossing than those in the movie.  But what an incredibly enduring and iconic character Holmes is!  Arthur Conan Doyle may not have set mystery writing in motion but he certainly boosted its stock exponentially.

 I checked out the origins of this genre and lo and behold our old pal Edgar Allen Poe pops up in the originators column. Cool.  I guess in one way mystery stories are like riddles taken to the umpteenth power.

Sooooo, while we're on that topic,  Carolyn, the suspense lives on . You didn't tell me what your last riddle was ( Clickity clack, whir, hum et al )  Mine were garlic, as you guessed, and not spiders but carpet. Having been been called thereupon periodically, I can vouch for that!  Your latest cryptogram is a goodie. I've kicked it around repeatedly and have no unequivocal answer. Time's up though, so  I'll guess, that it's an old fashioned juke box. You know, one of those with stacks of 45's you could see through the glass front  and lotsa chrome buttons and stuff. I  hear it now, thumping out The Wanderer or Peggy Sue.

  It could be a smartphone, though.

 Anyhow, here's a couple more:

Smooth at times, coarse at others

Runs away or sticks around

 Moves in trains and boats and comes alive with skillets and pots

Sometimes consorts openly with sandwiches.

Not quite a lie

Not quite the truth

Subtle or simple

Refined or uncouth

Asking for money

Playing on fears

Promising happiness

Coaxing out tears

Where there is nothing

Creating a need

Nurturing jealousy

Fostering greed.

P.S.  Carolyn,  I think your Congress and the classroom analogy is mostly on the money.  Both include individuals on their own agendas.  Myopia abounds. The politicos, though,  are truly dyed-in-the-wool. I don't think they're  reachable, except through the ballot box.  "Sail on, sail on, oh mighty ship of state." as Leonard Cohen says/sings.

 As for the students,  I don't think they're fundamentally different from that  smart derriere, basketball dog goof from the sixties we met a few paragraphs back.  Even he got the message eventually. 



Merci for letting me briefly hijack the soapbox ....




Don

Mystery vs Sci Fi and Riddle Me

Yes! Finally! I've been waiting a year to hear the magic words: "I've got an idea and I'm fleshing out a map..." Welcome Don! I promise not to push or impose a deadline - but I do have space for publishing your "idea" in April. Just a thought...

This is the 3rd time I've been asked recently "where do you find the time?" Actually, I'm doing the athletic training program - intensive interval training with daily maintenance. (Clear the deck for editing and grading, and do something related to writing or Wormhole every day.) However, this schedule has not allowed me the luxury of writing my own story. All well, another day perhaps. Yes, Don, I know - weeks have passed away, but I do have an outline and a plan!

Bragging rights! All the work has paid off! I'm proud that the result of all the serials Don and I have been editing over this last year have given us 6 books published through Amazon: 2 Anthologies and 4 full length novels! We do have prolific, amazing, imaginative authors and a tech team that is unstoppable! This "writing project" has surpassed what I imagined when I started this 15 months ago. (The In the Beginning episodes will be free through the Wormhole Electric website through the month of December.)

So why sci-fi over mystery? Especially since I love a good mystery? A friend of mine, a mystery writer, complained that he'd made a small detail mistake that was caught by a reader. That, in and of itself is a good thing, but the reader wouldn't let it go! His blog was spammed by the reader - the story goes on, but the point is "detail". In real everyday life, everyone is an expert, and if what you write doesn't jive with the readers' experience and knowledge, you end up spammed.

Syfy is different. Maybe the readership is different - more willing to suspend disbelief - but the story and the world created by the author really is fictitious! Detail is in the mind of the writer. I also think Syfy / fantasy takes my mind away from the every day ferris wheel it gets caught in. And this genre still creates the mystery! That is what the characters are there to solve, but it doesn't have as many limitations and a lot less research. Mind imagining is a freeing exercise for curiosity and solving "what if".

 

(Warning: Soap box tirade) This cartoon caught me eye. I work and teach young adults just beginning to express and unfold their talents, which technologically, are breath taking! But I'm concerned about this up-coming generation. They lack curiosity which boggles me. They want to be "different" so they become carbon copies of their friends. (I vaguely remember my mom complaining about this with my generation.) Sometimes it feels like I'm moving from one pigeon hole to another, trying to get their attention while competing with zombies, vampires, the latest video game or the dramas that are unfolding over their iphones. Breaking them out of the insanity of "This is the only way I'll solve this - even though I've tried it before and it didn't work - but I know it has to work sometime..." is difficult. Sounds a bit like our current Congress. Too bad. They're all missing the thrill of the ride and the grand slam feeling of working well with others and accomplishing great things.

 

 

Okay, Riddle time.

My guesses for Don's riddles are:

garlic and spiders.

 

And here is one back:

Black chrome white

stacks of delight

push my buttons

to apprehend soaring heights of

 confabulations

expressions and observations

What am I?

 

Have a great week folks,

Carolyn 

 

Reading, Writing and Riddling

Dear Sir or Madam

Will you read my book?

It took me years to write

Will  you take a look?

Paperback Writer   Lennon McCartney 

About a moon and a half ago, right here on this site,  I committed myself to penning that story that I've had somewhere inside as a loose affiliation of ideas for a couple of years or more. " How hard could it be? " I  thought.  I like, as Carolyn so deftly puts it, " rubbing words together " and I would be more effective as an editor if I too spent time at the starting end of the pen. I  understand the basic formula - set up a palpable problem then create attractive and engaging folks to solve it in attractive and engaging ways. It's like following a flight of steps. How could I get waylaid ?




 I told myself more than once back then, that one night soon I'd put bum to chair, fingers to keyboard and words together.  It would be un morceau de gateau.  I remember ,when I first got hooked on sci-fi, reading that Asimov(or maybe it was Bradbury) would routinely smack out thirty plus pages a day (editing, what the #*$& is that ?) . 

This thing, that thing and the other thing intervened and before I knew it  weeks had passed.

 So I sat down finally. Along with the challenge of writing a readable story there now was the creeping feeling that tempus was fugitting. Deadlines  have always been on my bane A-list. Carolyn, where do you find the time ??

When I did get back to my list/heap of ideas, fragments of this and that, and notes to self about what should be included, etc., I found that they actually further muddified things. I  needed some sort of outline to follow. I'd violated that very rule that I'd spent a number of years attempting to insert into the minds of my writing students - don't leave the house without a map!  I am now in the process of fleshing out that map. In doing so I've been made to focus on just where the potential weak links are. The foolproof flight of stairs has become a dark tunnel of sorts.  There are lots of  shadowy nooks and dead-end diversions to negotiate before I get to the light at the end.




In a small, serendipitous way succour came to me a few days ago. I got a copy of Kurt Vonnegut's posthumous " Armageddon in Retrospect " as a gift from my sister awhile back and I finally found myself in a position to crack it open. I've only been through the intro written by his son Mark so far but a couple of paragraphs in I found a perspective putting item.  A nine year old Mark describes his dad's M.O.

  




" He rewrote and rewrote and rewrote, muttering whatever he had just written over and over, tilting his head back and forth, gesturing with his hands, changing the pitch and rhythm of the words. Then he would pause thoughtfully rip the barely written-on sheet of typing paper from the typewriter, crumple it up, throw  it away, and start over again. It seemed like an odd way for a grownup to spend his time, but I was just a child who didn't know too much."

I feel better. 

Okay, I knew that there would have to be more doses of riddlin' injected into this international conversation. I welcome it heartily as I am a sucker for that kind of stuff.  Your last one left me with two possible choices. Either it's an old school reel-to-reel tape machine or ( and this is my ultimate guess as any half decent reel to reel would not click whir or hum lest it distort the recording ) it sounds like the ribbon wheel on an old electric typewriter. 

In response I respectfully submit the following twosome :

My Brothers are onions, my sisters are chives

I bring a strong presence to all of your lives

Best in the buds and worst in the roots

With tasty bruschetta I'm oft in cahoots

*

*

Seldom in kitchens, often in halls

  sometimes I'm even found climbing the walls

Sometimes I'm hairy and sometimes I'm bald

Sometimes upon me you find yourself called



Don