Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
You ever hear someone unloose a long, heavy sigh, and think, yep, I know exactly how you feel?
Yep.
Tasting the coffee today, I raised my eyebrows in appreciation and admiration.
It was the second cup of the day. The first had been at home. I was now in the coffee shop.
But this coffee —
“Mmmm,” I said to myself, like I was Wolf the cleaner (Harvey Keitel) in Pulp Fiction, appreciating the coffee Jimmy (Tarentino) had given him.
I enjoyed the coffee sequences through that period at Jimmy’s house in that movie, because it was so damn real, a pause within the gritty to appreciate a flavor.
Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, and Reservoir Dogs all need to be added to my dirty list, along with Serenity. How could I forget them? They’re mos def movies I stop to watch when I come across them.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Get your motor runnin’.
Head out on the highway.
Lookin’ for adventure.
And whatever comes our way.
Some songs and performers are permanently linked in memory for me. The performers have other hits, but one song first comes to mind when I hear their name. Say Pink Floyd, and I think, “Money”. AC/DC, “Highway to Hell”. The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. Black Sabbath: “Paranoid”.
For Steppenwolf, it’s a ditty called “Born to be Wild”. I was enamored of Steppenwolf when I was thirteen. That would have been 1969. My friends weren’t as impressed. Mom knew I liked them, though. She showed me a newspaper article about John Kay’s escape from Russia. Then Easy Rider came out, featuring the song. Yes, I had a poster of Hopper and Fonda on their choppers on my wall.
“Born to be Wild”, from 1968.
Furvasive (catfinition) – cat or dog fur spreading extensively throughout a place or on objects.
In use: “The household’s three cats and two dogs’ furvasive present was known through fur on their clothing and furniture. Getting it off seemed impossible, almost like the fur was in the air like rain. The black cat’s impact seemed more furvasive than the rest combined, particularly on the bed, where the aging house panther liked to sleep.”
I only retain a few main points of a sketchy superhero dream.
I was a superhero but have no idea what my powers were. I was using my powers to do good but what I remember of that is basically see headlines mentioning that I’d done something. You know, the headline said, “Child Saved”, with a photo of me as a superhero beside it.
The superhero organization reached out to me to help me advance and explain how it works. Apparently, I could gain others’ superpowers by defeating them. These were superheroes beyond their prime. They could help others advance and become stronger by giving them their powers when they were defeated. These aging superheroes didn’t mind doing that because they’d recover their powers and do it again.
It was sketchy to me. I struggled to comprehend. To add more confusion, the man from the organization explained to me that these aging superheroes often had multiple names and entities so they could give their powers away more often.
Huh?
Yes. All they did was add a letter or suffice to the beginning. So, I could defeat the superhero Reinaman.
Reinaman?
I recalled Reinaman in his old red and yellow costume. I didn’t recall his powers or why I would want to defeat him and take his powers.
The guy said, Reinaman was also Areinaman, Ireinaman, Preinaman, and Zedreinaman. Those are the examples I remember. The last one, Zedreinaman, sounded like the name of a flower to me, I told the rep.
That wasn’t important. Do you get the idea?
Yes, I got the idea but I remained confused. As instructed, though, I started doing this, and gained stature by defeating Ireinaman and Reinaman.
“Now you get it,” the superhero org rep said.
No, I didn’t.
As I showered today, enjoying fresh hot water, I thought about all the moments leading to that one. I looked back toward Ashland becoming a town and the settlers coming together with a decision to establish a water system. They created dams and cisterns, and channeled water to pipes for homes to tap off them.
Imagine all of that, the thinking and conversations that were held about the idea, and the decisions that had to be made. Someone paid for it, someone oversaw the work, and others did the work.
Then expand, look at our modern areas with their drainage, sewage, and water supplies. The trails, paths, sidewalks, streets, and roads that were built, expanding into higheways, and then augmented with interstate expressways. Look at the driveways, parking spots, parking garages, and gas stations. Look at the new charging stations for electric cars. Look beyond to the communication lines, from telegraphs and telephones to antennas, and cable television and Internet connections to satellite feeds and cell towers.
It is amazing stuff that I take for granted, this infrastructure that I use with little thought, and it’s such a small, small fragment of the entire development that we call civilization. Shame that we have the potential to destroy all of this thought and work by careless thought and activity.
Especially when you consider the more amazing planet upon which all of this is built.
Thinking about what I’m doing in my writing and thinking, and writing and posting to understand what I’m thinking and writing.
See, I had to leave my characters behind and scale the walls once again. First I did it while I was walking, but once I glimpsed the territory, I needed to map it out on paper.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the walls. I’ve never heard other writers use the expression as I use it. The walls establish the characters’ limits of knowledge. They’re different for each character — all remember, realize, experience, or know different aspects than others.
Beyond the walls are the other events taking place that will affect the characters. How much is happening and what you, the writer, decides to share, depends on the story you’re telling. For examples, walls are frequently employed in sitcoms. One character establishes some half-ass fact or understanding predicated on misheard or overheard information, or glimpse something and make a wrong assumption, initiating a chain of misguided decisions. We, the audience, knows what’s going on beyond the wall. That sets up the humor.
We see the walls in the Jason Bourne movie franchise, where many walls are employed, torn down, or penetrated. Secrecy, security, dirty histories, and personal agendas establish and maintain the walls.
In this series that I’m writing, I use multiple walls. A huge part of what’s going on is happening beyond the walls. It’s stuff that wasn’t told to the characters or the readers. Now, though, the characters are storming the walls. They’re planning to tear them down, so I need to go see what’s happening on the other side. To get to that point, I pulled out pen and notebook. I resort to this methodology when I’m going my craziest. Pen and paper is less permanent, and more fluid and malleable. Typewritten words on screen or paper demands grammar, punctuation, and spelling be followed from years of conditioning. The notebook and pen shouts, “Scribble fight!” And off I go.
Got my coffee, and in position. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Purrprietary (catfinition) – a cat’s claim of ownership by sitting or laying on it and purring.
In use: “He’d bought the laptop for his planned writing career, but as soon as he set it up and turned it on, Pepper, his Siamese cat – positioned herself on the keyboard and purred, establishing her purrprietary claim.”
Michael Seidel, writer 