Author: admin

I couldn’t find a way to sleep last night. I was up at 1:20 in the AM and stayed awake through four with intermittent periods of wakefulness through 9:30 AM, which is when I finally gave up trying. My mind is tired. My mind is so tired that I didn’t make the effort to put the 3+ hours in today. If I’m being totally honest, the 3+ haven’t gone well for weeks now. I haven’t done better than 1.5. As a result my progress in all things writing has slowed to a crawl. On the bright side, the schedule I designed allows for this week to be a sell without the situation getting too out of hand.

The key is to stay on track. The key is to keep going and try as hard as possible to produce what can be produced everyday—even if it is just ten minutes of somewhat mindful excuse making about why you didn’t or couldn’t or wouldn’t do more.

So, lets take these next five to get to the mindful part of things:

I know that part of the problem is that my current set of activities is means far more to me than sitting around and writing alone. I need to reconcile that quickly, because the way things are is exactly what I mean the rest of my existence to look like.

Some Thoughts:

1. Been trying to rationally think through my wants and needs in a way that prioritzes some things over others yet either allows me to give up some dreams or fulfill them in a meaningful way. I have this house, which is a hot mess. Seriously, it’s a dump and I don’t think anyone in my family cares about putting it together as much as I do or at all beyond a paint job. The interior was a problem situation that brought out the worst of my tendencies and alienated all of the females. So, now I’m stuck deciding where to go from here. I want to put together a nice backyard. And a nice front yard.

It didn’t take long for me to decide I’d screwed up the job something extra awful. The guards were tearing out of the building in search of the man I was sent to protect and he was wearing nothing but a medical smock and a bad attitude. He’d probably get picked up by NYPD INC. and placed into the system as a crazy or a homeless person unless he came to his senses long enough to explain the situation. I’d be better off not being here when that happened. I had a few close friends in the NYPD but a lot more enemies who had the power and the resolve to put me behind bars so thick I couldn’t fit my hands around them.

It didn’t take me much longer to recognize that a near-naked Choi meant that his clothes along with any possible clues were still here. I stood up, ignoring the looks of confusion and derision from the handful of nurses stationed all around me, and moved quickly to the room where I first heard Choi screaming. Sure enough his stuff was there. I gathered everything I could, not stopping to look through any of it. Then I dashed back to my room where my clothes and confused Doctor were waiting.

“Sorry, Doc. I’m going to postpone. Things have gotten a bit complicated on my end.”

The doctor was standing with commlink in hand, likely sending a message to NYPD. That made it all the more important that I left immediately. I rushed to put on my clothes as he stood there staring but not saying anything. Then I ran as fast as I could towards the back of the building, hoping they were up to code and there was indeed a back way out of there.

Indeed there was. I cracked open the door with a quick peek for flashing lights. Finding none I pushed through and ran down the alley towards the one part of the city I knew would be a safe place to hide, if only for a little while.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m having fun with the story. It doesn’t make a ton of sense, but arguably most on the fly drafts don’t—especially if written chapter by chapter within a ten minute window. It is a dream to continue this and make this a fundamental part of the blog. I’m about stories and storytelling and this is a fun way to get my wiggles out while working on larger things.
2. I’m hoping to do more and more of those larger things as I recognize how to best manage the hours of the day I devote to my craft as I move through life. Writing is a priority. While not the only one it is a major one and above almost everything else.
3. As I am scheduling the words I am realizing how much I can really get done when I put my butt in the chair.

I write a lot of Shadowrun material. The game, originated in the late 80’s/early 90’s takes on the idea of cyberpunk and asks, ‘what happens if I throw in some Tolkien-esque races and a whole lot of magic?’ The result is a super-interesting blend of ideas that all operate under the umbrella of corporate overreach. In my writings I generally focus on one location or another. Over the years I’ve written about Bellevue, WA quite a few times without having any real understanding of the Belle from the standpoint of what it is like in real life or how to extrapolate a possible corporate-driven future from that location.

So, I came to see what was up.

I missed a lot. I got a lot more wrong. The stuff I got right feels coincidental at this point; a merger of sociological background information with assumptions based on living in New York and Long Island and merging those competing philosophies into a ‘what-if?’ scenario.

Real-life Bellevue feels like what Scottsdale AZ would be if it got it’s act together, recruited smart rich people instead of athletes, smarmy first gen trust fund babies, and new money and existed in a space where the land allowed for prodigious corporate growth. Eddie Baur has an office building here. As does Microsoft and a number of other organizations. More to the point the city works. It has a functional transit system that joins a number of small neighborhoods into a patois that feels like a series of interconnected places you are welcome to visit. It is diverse. It is actually a nice place to be… If you can afford it.

Which I cannot, by the way.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am starting to appreciate the nature of first drafts and writing through an outline even though you know what you are creating is not exactly what you want it to be. You have to get that bad writing and bad plotting out of your system to create room for what is to come. Moreover, happy accidents occur throughout that portion of the process and perhaps those accidents are what make for fantastic story.

Nobody spoke.

I sat on the ground dazed and listening to the thump, thump, thump of retreating footsteps. The guard hovering over me muttered, “Drek.” Then kicked at his partner who was sitting on the ground next to me. Then he said, “He’s running!”

It was a reference to the footsteps, which my groggy self came around to realizing belonged to the unusual looking Peter Choi who’d just made it out of the back area and was likely sprinting towards the exit. The guard still standing said, “Drek!” again, but louder this time. Then he turned and ran after Choi. I started to get up, but the other guard was coming around and he was far from happy. He got to his feet before I did, and then he did the same magic trick with his gun. Wired Reflexes. His body was trained in a fashion that specific movement patterns could be performed a hundred times faster than the average person, as though drawing a gun were a button on a shortcut menu. Now that gun was pointed at me. At least my hands were still up.

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding here.” I said.

He tensed, his eyes narrowing in a brief flash of anger.

“No seriously,” I said, “I am an officer of the law. I thought you were harming that man.”

“Show me your badge.”

I raised my eyebrows. I was wearing a surgical gown from the weigh in–the same pre-surgery outfit Choi had on when he ran. I said, “Obviously, I don’t have it on me. I’m not here for, well, on the books work” It sounded reasonable to me at least. Cops went under the knife all the time, and they did it with tier own money to give them a competitive advantage on the streets. All the same, the work was frowned upon by NYPD INC. Because they didn’t have polcies in place to regulate officer modifications.

It was enough to at least make him reconsider shooting me. He took two steps backwards before lowering his gun, and then he turned and ran after his partner.

Some Thoughts:

1. Went back and tried to fix whatever damage happened to the formatting in Chapter 21.

I stumbled across Dungeonfog’s Project Deios recently and… Yo. They’ve created a deep mapping engine that works on all levels of the world building cycle. This is the technology I’ve been waiting for the past forty years and at a price point I likely can afford. We’ll see about that come pay day, but I really think I can make it work. I’ve been looking for that visual jumpstart to get me back into the fantasy push. I love the idea of building a fantasy world, but it always feels just out of reach. I cannot do the art or mapping. I don’t really feel I have a grip on a world until I see it. So, you put those things together and you get a drought of fantasy energy. But soon I shall return. I might make the next bloganovella a fantasy one. That is if this one ever ends….

Some Thoughts:

1. Been off the xbox for a long time now. Miss it, will enjoy getting back to it at some point, but likely not playing as much. It’s about that time of year that I don’t have as much time.
2. Drained of thoughts this evening. It happens.

I’ve been thinking about JJ Abrams quite a bit lately. Watching Fringe again (and for the first time when it comes to the last two seasons) feels like walking through his mind in a way that makes me feel that I’ve always been walking alongside him. He has a number of shows and movies that pepper our publicized reality in a way that make him our pop culture default. He is, however, an 80s guy whose television history matches my own in some ways and I can see the echoes reverberating through the multitude of Disney Universes.

When I think about Abrams I think about my own fictional worlds and where they come from and what inspired them and what they represent. I also feel, to a certain extent, unmoored. I consumed far more fiction when I was school-aged than I do now that I have school-aged children. There are many reasons why it is true and less why it continues to be true. One thing that remains ever present is the desire to explore worlds that are not my own and shape worlds that are. That is, in part, why I write science fiction and (allegedly) fantasy.

Some Thoughts:

1. Men make women uncomfortable. It happens in a number of ways that are tied to perception. When a man looks up and sees someone walking by, does that woman pull her coat tighter around herself? Does she smile? Does she shoot back a stare or look of anger? What determines that response. I believe that response is partly based on how the man looks and how the man looks at the woman and the history of that woman’s reality leading up to that moment. I think it is a thing that is worth exploring in story. Somehow.

I jumped over the divider, quickly eyeing whatever I could turn into a weapon. There wasn’t much. This wasn’t the sort of place to leave scalpels lying around. I’m no mage, so I couldn’t bring a spell to bear either. It seemed, in that long moment, that I was absolutely the wrong person for the job. Why had this magical creature come to me in hopes of protecting Choi? What advantage did she think I had over serious security muscle? While I was working to figure it out and darted across the short space between counters. The nurses were watching Choi screaming and fighting and didn’t notice me until I grabbed a chair and tossed it at the closest guard. It connected with his face and he staggered backwards bloody and surprised. The other one turned towards me, his face betraying confusion and anger. Choi broke loose of his grip and as soon as the man spun back to deal with Choi I leaped over the counter and drove my elbow into his temple.

It was a working plan. Not a very good one. Not working too well either.

He dropped to his knees with a grunt and I rode down to the ground with him, wrapping myself around him the way I’d trained to do. I had his airflow cut off in a matter of seconds, and I would’ve taken him down too had his partner decided to go after Choi right then.

He didn’t.

He tore me off his partner and slammed me to the floor. A gun appeared in his hand so quickly that it must have teleported there. Or maybe I was a little disoriented from being smashed to the ground. The security man screamed, “Don’t you fracking move!”

I didn’t.

I’ll Bloganovella tomorrow.

Today I was reviewing some student work and thinking about the concept of Adam and Eve. It got me thinking about how whoever writes the accepted history makes the accepted history and beliefs. We continue to portray Adam and Eve and God in a particular way. We continue to view God as a man, though the idea of a singular creator defies gender and, if it is gender based would likely be female as the female is the one who would produce in our biological stream. Specifically, I kept coming back to the idea of how readily students–religious people in general–accept the idea of Adam and Eve being white. It speaks to a larger belief of white being the ‘first race’ which flies in the face of science and hurts the prospects of science and faith walking hand in hand.

If we are to view the bible as an embellishment of things that happened, following the idea that we can find these religious sites and trace them back to Africa and the Middle East, then Adam and Eve didn’t look like Scandinavians. Jesus didn’t look like a dude from Santa Monica Pier. None of these things fit, which is what I suppose some people call faith. I have a different sense of what faith is personally, and I feel faith is linked less to belief in the specific words than it is in the ideas and beliefs behind the words. That is why I get upset when we speak of the King James Bible as the word of God and forget to mention that it is in fact the King James edit and nobody wants to talk about who that dude was and what he did.

Ideas are contagious. Ideas are viral and spiral down and across the centuries becoming the very fabric of reality in which we dress our daily lives. We don’t look too closely at these things on a daily basis, just as we don’t tend to consider the mundanity of our daily routine, because looking too closely can upset that routine.

I’ve been walking a lot over the last few days–more than I’ve walked in years, probably. That’s a good thing. I feel better. I feel healthier and more capable. I feel like I’ve earned an evening’s fatigue and that I can truly enjoy each day the way it was meant. I don’t know if I am losing weight–that is a complex formulae to crack. I do know that this is a better version of me and it comes from spending quality time with my partner and not sinking into the habits so fully. It is recommended.

I’m not writing though. I haven’t been productive in the last few days, and that does need course correction. It is one of those weird balance things that has to be constantly reassessed. I’m in the process of doing just that.

Some Thoughts:

1. Great finals series. Giannis is playing amazing basketball, but his team is struggling on the road. I suspect Game 3 adjustments will be better than Game 2 adjustments. I give the Bucks the next two and we are back to Phoenix to play a 3 game series for all the marbles.
2. Speaking of which, Marble race is back. It’s really fun and well done. It is everything houseofbeys failed to be. I lacked the production value and energy and following when I created that one. I wish there were a way to bring back something similar, but I suppose that is not to be. The beys are mostly gone and the stadiums are definitely gone. The desire to have these fun seasons as such is there. If only there were something worthwhile!

Peter Choi did not like going under the knife.

I heard his screaming from the room where I was sitting with Dr. Haresh. I stood up immediately. He stood too, which told me that he was nearly as suprised as I was that a patient would be freaking out.

“Don’t worry about that.” He lied, “Sometimes patients can be extreme and become frightened easily by the prospect of surgical work.”

I didn’t respond. Instead I moved towards the door opening it quickly to see who was out there. The space outside of Dr. Haresh’s office could be described as an office bullpen. Four nurses worked inside of a space bordered on each end by a high arced divider that served double duty as a counter. I could see Peter Choi on the far side of the bullpen. Two men dressed in suits were struggling to hold him and calm him down. Peter was short and visibly elven. His skin tone held a bluish tint I’d never seen before. He was red faced and screaming profanities at the men, interspersed with bits of dialogue. I could make out “This is not what I agreed to” and “I won’t do it!”

That was enough for me to realize whatever I was being paid to stop was about to start.

Let me be clear. I am no hero. I’m not Jaron BlackStar on your Saturday night shadwrunner trid. I’m more like that guy in the commercials for the MCT Commlink. No, not the one choosing his phone. The other one. The guy off to the left who looks like he’s freaked out to be caught on the trid and immediately dips out. I prefer the kind of physical confrontations that I know are coming but the other guy doesn’t. So, this was exactly my kind of fight.