Category: writing

The Chi Compulsion

A storm was rocking the house. Rain did a Keith Moon impersonation on the walls and roof. My wife could not sleep. She was listening to BBC World News on the clock-radio.

“Want me to talk to you about my novel in progress?” I asked.

“Yes.”

That always puts her to sleep.

So I talked to her. I told her, I just wrote the first chapter to part three of a science fiction novel, even though parts one and two are not finished. Part two needs much more work. But I ‘saw’ this chapter and felt like it needed to be written. It’s like a guidepost about where I’m going. So I wrote it and put it into the novel.

I’ve been researching and writing about Chi-particles, I said, and then talked a little about general and special theories, chemical elements and quantum mechanics. I don’t know much about them, and that part of the discussion was finished quicker than an amuse-bouche.

I went on about my current obsession, Chi-particles. Chi-particles are imaginary particles, with imaginary mass and energy, that travel faster than light, and faster than the theorized tachyon particles. They exhibit properties of light, time and mass. They gain real energy and real mass as they slow down.

Yeah.

Calling them particles is incorrect but that’s what I called them in the beginning so that’s what sticks as part of my world-building history. My imaginary physicists later investigated and theorized that Chi-particles are sub-sub-sub atomic particles.

They are the universal building blocks. Chi-particles are in everything.

My wife was now snoring.

I continued, however.

Chi-particles actually have structures with a nucleus and other sub-level Chi-particles in orbit about them. Their Chi-structure is what drives atomic structure. Everything has Chi-energy. Chi-energy directs whether something develops into a chemical element, energy, dark matter, etc. They direct when something ‘comes alive’ and direct its levels of self-awareness, growth and sentience.

They direct what species the animated, organic matter becomes.

I sketched the Universal Theory of Relativity, in which the quantity of energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared (Einstein’s theory) is equal to the square root of Chi-particles imaginary light times Chi-particles imaginary mass.

I folded the entire thinking into wave function collapse and thoughts of ‘now’, time and the past. From there, I developed several other ideas and kept talking.

One idea is a future technology called star dating. It’s still rudimentary but I see it as a small but critical point in the novel. Essentially, background radiation leaves residual energy on everything, which then can be measured, in a sort of hybrid process between carbon dating, counting the rings on a tree, and using layers of dust to establish global events or using background radiation to understand the Universe.

Next to emerge was Chi-particle entanglement. I’ve thought about this before but needed to more fully vet it. As I walked through what the hell that meant, I came to realize that Chi-particles travel in a petal pattern. I started thinking about energy fields and ley lines.

Ah, yes. Much more came together. Some stuff didn’t work, I realized. They needed more thought. Then an epiphany rewarded me. Dazzled by its audacity, I started laughing in bed. But then, I easily impress and amuse myself. It’s all far-out. Hell, it’s fiction.

The alarm went off. It was six twenty-seven. Time for my wife to get up to dress and head for the Y and her exercise class.

I pulled the covers up to my chin and snuggled into my blanket nest. I wasn’t ready to get up. I wasn’t going to get up. I was warm and drowsy. I wanted more sleep. I’d been thinking and talking, off and on, for over ninety minutes.

My wife rolled over, turned off the alarm, re-settled herself and returned to sleep.

A cat meowed in another part of the house. I wanted more sleep but…

The cats needed to be fed and tended. Taking my Chi-particle thinking with me, I went off to feed them and then, because they were on my mind, presented these posts.

Now I really want a nap. But…there is writing to do, and movie matinees later today. I need to write so I can return and do other things. Therefore….

Turn on the coffee.

I can nap later.

3

Today’s Theme Music

Songs are bouncing through my head. Why today and now?

I don’t know.

They’re happening against the writing, dreaming, holiday, marriage, and life background. Each of those arenas inject their own spectrum of influences. All feel equally strong this week but writing is affecting the others. I’m deeply involved in the novel writing process, so much so that I’m losing track of the calendar and holiday, and I’m withdrawn into my thinking and writing. This, unsurprisingly, triggers my spouse’s deep irritation and some resentment.

I see her point. Yet, that is me, an emotional cripple, and a writer. I write to explore what I think but also what I feel. It leaves me at the crossroads at midnight, waiting to consummate a deal with the devil. I can’t abandon thinking about the novel and its elements of chi-p, Pram, Brett, virii, time-travel and the like. It’s too late for that; the novel’s presence is embedded in my psyche and will likely remain there until the story is fully told.

Yet I look for the leap from my life cycles to the song cycles. I wonder how songs are connected to smells and smells are connected to sights and sights are connected to emotions and emotions are connected to intelligence and intelligence is connected with memory and memory is connected to songs. It’s all wired together but something charges the wires, making some wires come alive, opening and closing switches, and taking me to unexpected places.

Like these songs.

Against the backdrop of writing and living, I’d been thinking about Mike Posner’s song and his lyrics.

I took a pill in Ibiza
To show Avicii I was cool
And when I finally got sober, felt 10 years older
But fuck it, it was something to do
I’m living out in LA
I drive a sports car just to prove
I’m a real big baller ’cause I made a million dollars
And I spend it on girls and shoes

But you don’t wanna be high like me
Never really knowing why like me
You don’t ever wanna step off that roller coaster and be all alone
You don’t wanna ride the bus like this
Never knowing who to trust like this

I was particularly hooked on the lines, ‘But you don’t wanna be high like me, Never knowing why like me’. From there, drifting through the lyrics last night, I awoke today singing:

Tell you ’bout a dream that I have every night
Tell you ’bout a dream that I have every night
It ain’t kodachrome and it isn’t black and white
Take me for a fool if you feel that’s right
Well I’m never on my own but there’s nobody in sight

I don’t know if I’m scared of the lightning
Trying to reach me
I can’t turn to the left or the right
I’m too scared to run and I’m too weak to fight
But I don’t care it’s all psychobabble rap to me

Tell you ’bout a dream that I have every night
It’s in dolby stereo but I never hear it right
Take me for a fool well that’s alright
Well I see the way to go but there isn’t any light

That song is ‘Psychobabble’ by the Alan Parsons Project. The album containing the song was released in 1982. I listened to it on cassette tape while I lived and worked on Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.

I can see how the two songs, Mike Posner’s ‘I Took A Pill in Ibiza’ and Alan Parsons Project’s ‘Psychobabble’ fused in my mind. There’s a thread of questioning identity in both and reflections about our minds and choices. It’s more a question of why those songs nestled into the thinking and feeling about everything else this week.

And as I wrote it, I saw it. These songs arose from the morass because I’m conflicted; because guilt assails me. Because responsibilities and desires are torn and my frustrations are running high.

I thought one of these songs should be today’s theme music for my day. I finally decided to go with ‘Psychobabble’ because it’s more recent. See, it’s the latest one that I’ve been singing.

In my mind.

0

Big Data Spoke

A far future science-fiction exercise.

Collecting, collating and compiling data from Human databases and streams – government, social, medical, financial, historic, personal, personnel, death, birth and health records – revealed startling evidence.

Humans were dying less. Even those who could be resurrected, cloned, recovered, re-invigorated or re-born, were dying far less often. Fewer still were dying and remaining dead. Suicides were recorded with four zeroes after a decimal point. The population median age, already well over one hundred, was rising sharply, with less people deciding to even be reborn as a younger age with their adult memories intact. It seemed like that fad had fast faded.

Okay. But birth rates had also plummeted, falling like the temperatures on Castle Frozen when an Arctic front roared over the mountains and down across the plains. Less than two children were being born for every hundred people. Most of those children were not being permitted to age into maturity and adulthood but were kept as children for their parents’ entertainment.

The Council for Peace and Prosperity met on Castle Prime’s equatorial climate-controlled island to discuss general trends and concerns. The big data study on birth and death was a minor agenda item on the third day.

Most weren’t worried, arguing this was a burp, a blip. Yes, all were part of longer, greater trends, but the sharp drop-off was new. Those in the business of helping the dead return to life weren’t concerned; their business reviews were based on subscriptions and not a per use basis. Subscription rates were remaining steady. No losses were being recognized but the resurrection was a mature technology and had developed into a commodity. Profit margins were smaller. That was a concern.

Analysts also had deep dive data to present. Wars, warfare and violence remained at high levels but more people were avoiding killing one another. That unnerved attendees. It pointed to a training issue to many. Soldiers and officers needed encouragement to kill more quickly and readily. Perhaps studies were needed to understand what kept them from killing others when engaging them.

Such suggestions were quickly shot down. Studies like that were for the weak-willed or when appearances were needed that something was being done to mollify investors and voters until their attention wandered or other matters distracted them. No, studies weren’t needed in this situation; investors and voters didn’t know about these big data reveals. They would remain corporate secrets.

Second: population growth was required. Cloning was the natural solution. Adult clones were a ready market. Children had smaller and well-defined needs that were already being fulfilled. Adults were big children who eagerly embraced new toys and trends. Adults were willing to spend more on their toys, too, especially if said toys could be positioned as status symbols about wealth, power or influence. Most adults were sufficiently weak-willed and insecure or had such low self-esteem that they would be swayed by such bland and routine practices.

However…archaic laws remained in place against cloning a person to live more than one life at a time. Right now, cloning was permitted for only very small population segments and narrowly defined pre-existing conditions. Even that cloning was done well outside of the public eye.

Those laws needed to be changed. Immediate potential campaigns inspired the Council attendees. Contract pop and sports stars to headline campaigns. Say, they could be doing different activities on different planets, like skiing, surfing, fucking, dancing, performing, interviewing, whatever, marketing could work out those details. The point would be that doing these things simultaneously enriched the individual experiences and compounded their impact. The key behind the campaigns – there would naturally need to be several because to cover all the pop-culture segments – was to encourage envy about living a fuller life by living multiple simultaneous lives and fertilizing your life base. Having it done illegally by someone(s) popular and successful was the natural launching point. People loved lawbreakers.

Likewise, clone the best of the service members. Offer small bonuses for permitting the cloning. Simultaneously, initiate campaigns to overturn the cloning laws. Analysis would reveal which planets and societies could be open to such change and which would be the greatest influencers. New interpretations of founding documents and religious works could be published that seemed to encourage cloning as a religious right and even an expectation by whatever deities people worshiped these days.

Third, begin a whisper campaign. Stir up the rabble: birth rates were down because governments were encouraging certain races, ages, classes, corporations and planets to give birth less as part of a greater conspiracy to reduce those populations, thereby undermining their impact and participation. People always hated and distrusted governments and were easily inspired to rise up against them. Blame regulations, too. That always fired up the fringes, and then the flames would spread.

Beautiful. It was all coming together. Off the record, they agreed that more wars could be initiated. Step up the activity against pirates, rebels, independent planets, and smaller corporations and systems. That would increase the death rate and probably the birth rate.

Sure, this wasn’t a problem; it was an opportunity. Open the floodgates and rake in the wealth.

 

2

These Days

These days are like and unlike other days. Days are like people and snowflakes, so similar on quick glances and shallows assessments but unique under study.

These days are wearying, grinds with the same sense of repetition and routine found in many livelihoods. That it is my choice mitigates some of my complaints but add some bitter flavoring in acknowledgement, this is the culmination of my efforts, dreams, thoughts, planning and decisions. Passing people working in the thirty-two degree sunshine, I know I have it fortunate but I still complain. Complaining seems to be my essence but I’m solidly stolid and stoic in my demeanor. Yes, I readily smile to address the world and otherwise seem affable. Under this is a worn and brittle sense that I’m hanging on. I don’t know what I’m hanging on to, for or why; I sense that’s pretty normal and a large part of our standard quest to learn why we’re here.

These days of wars, lies and misinformation are actually much like many days of other eras. There is always contention between classes, nations, parties and individuals about humanity’s course and about what should be done, with more and less callousness extended toward the general human condition, and more and less need for some to be powerful, wealthy and worshiped. These days, we’re not really sure what’s going to happen next but these days aren’t much different from other days. Our children are no longer practicing duck and cover at school so they can survive nuclear, biological and chemical attacks as so many children did in the 1950s in America. We have that going for us, these days, although the weapons and capabilities remain, ready for release when orders are given, codes are verified and buttons are pressed.

These days I take a deep breath and mount the stairs to the coffee shop. I find a table and set up shop. Order my drink and banter with the baristas. I collect story points and scenes in my mind, bringing up the things I thought in bed last night, in the shower, and during the drive and the walk today. Scenes gain momentum in my consciousness.

These days, I question myself, is this how others write? Bob Mustin offered a series of posts about Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize. In the series conclusion today, Mustin included the text of Dylan’s speech and a video of the US Ambassador to Sweden making the speech. Bob Dylan thought about and expressed what such an honor means, but more, Dylan wrote about his early hopes and expectations. He just wanted someone to hear him and get enough reward to do more of the same. As Dylan does and did, he gathers insights and neatly sums them up: that’s all we want, to find what we want to do and gain enough reward and recognition to carry on. Everything else is an unexpected benefit.

It’s a good grounding reminder. We don’t know what the future will bring. We can expend energy projecting and forecasting, striving to understand every nuance of nature and events to ensure we’re as prepared as possible, but we just don’t know what will come. We don’t know what dreams will be fulfilled, nor where we’ll fail. We can only decide to try and press on.

These days, it’s helpful as encouragement to keep going. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time. You never know what will come of it.

Not in these days.

 

0

The Real

He awakes. Stillness is king.

Big snow storm was striking the area. They weren’t due snow in his zone. Snow was expected above five thousand feet. That gave them an almost three thousand foot buffer but weather is fickle.

He checks the time and temperature on his weather station. Three fifty-five. Thirty-five degrees. Three five. The numbers made him smile. Those were his lucky numbers as a kid.

Two cats investigate him. Deciding all was safe, they expect rewards. He feeds them and goes to the kitchen for water. Drinking it, he surveys the remnants of two dreams. Odd, of course. One involved his mother-in-law, sister-in-law and her husband, their car, and a white bi-plane. The other was military oriented, of course – structure and identity. The dreams remind him of wreckage after a hurricane.

Peeing was required. The business didn’t require much attention. His mind wandered to blogs and knowing people through blogs but not otherwise knowing them. He pondered the difference between aspiring writer and struggling writer and the choices the words reflected.

He went to bed and thought of a road trip movie. A writer. A series of events. A wife passed away. A writer road trip to meet bloggers that he’d never met. It reminded him of a movie more than a decade ago, perhaps two decades. A man retiring. He bought a recreational vehicle. His wife dies of a heart-attack while vacuuming. He can’t recall more. Details trickle in. Man discovers his wife was having an affair.  De Niro? Murray? No.

Ah. Nicholson. ‘About Schmidt’. What year? That’s too much for dead AM.

A working title arrived for his movie: ‘The Real’. He smiles at that. He thinks of it as a dramedy.

He wonders how much of this he will remember in the morning. “Sleep,” he whispers to himself and lets his breathing seek its rhythm.

So much to write, he laments to himself, and sleeps.

1

Finer Points

Finishing up another awesome writing day, knock on wood. I exploded with excitement here in the coffee shop, leaping up to rapidly pace with an epiphany. The coffee shop was empty so there wasn’t anyone to witness this except the security cameras.

I’m eighty pages into Part II. One of my finer parts: do I want to use Roman numerals for these parts, or Arabic?

Other finer points: had to add a reminder into the bible that Travail, regardless of sex, sound female to Humans.

More finer points.

  • Still have trouble with some words. Lay and lie today. I believe it’s because they’re often mis-used, and that ends up causing me confusion. Then I researched the differences between replicate and duplicate.
  • Dislike writing and using the expression ‘time travel’. Movement, travel, etc., indicates physical motion in the inventor’s opinion. She, as a physicist, objects to that expression. It’s under discussion and investigation.
  • After yesterday’s intense session, I continued writing in my head when I left. That’s sort of frustrating and exciting because it debilitates my ability to navigate and manage in the real world. Walking was okay, as I was on residential streets with little traffic. Behind the wheel was more dangerous as dialogue preoccupied my brain. I was able to capture this today and expand on it when I resumed my writing.
  • I had to go over where the novel is at and where it’s going. Eight major story lines exist. Each has its own presenting POV. I went over each one, re-stating where they’re at, where they’re going, what (in a broad sense) needs to be written, and how they intersect and affect the others. This was mentally done three times to sort, organize and solidify my understanding. Part of today’s session was then spent capturing that novel map into (yet another) guiding document. LOL.

They’re such intense writing sessions at this time. I love it. They remind me of how wonderful and satisfying writing like crazy can be. I can’t write fast enough to stay up with the unfolding novel.

Now, the coffee is gone, my ass is asleep, yadda yadda yadda. Besides, this new arrival at another table has an impressive stage voice. We all know that she had two glasses of wine last night. It’s been said three times as a minimum.

Time to go.

3

What Do You Want To Do?

Dying and suffering are two ingredients of the standard life. How you approach it may vary. It’s something I ask my characters as I interact with others in real existence and think of their situations.

One is George. The second is Tucker. The third is Walt.

Walt is dead. The other two are alive.

Tucker is a cat. He showed up on my front porch a few years ago as a one hundred degree heat squeezed the air dry and forest fires shrouded the valley with smoke. He was injured, sick and scared. Although we were dealing with two sick cats, we took him in. I searched for his people but didn’t find them. He stayed.

Tucker suffers from an auto-immune disease, gingivitis stomatitis. After being owned by cats since I was twenty, he’s the third cat I’ve seen experiencing this. It disturbs me that I hadn’t seen any suffer this until the last ten years. Tucker is the third.

His symptoms are that his body is itself, with the primary front in his mouth. Plaque rapidly builds on his teeth. His gums become inflamed, infected, swollen, and at the worst times, bloody. They cause him huge pain. The infections can spread to other body parts. They don’t know what causes this so they address symptoms. Anti-biotics treat the infections. Teeth are cleaned. Steroids are injected to counter the inflammation. They’re temporary measures. They want to remove his teeth. That may help some. It usually does, but it doesn’t always help the cat. They can’t give odds.

The steroids, though, have side effects. Those side effects killed two of the other cats. It was a long process.

Walt suffered from pancreatic cancer. It was acting fast. His appetite faded, and then his weight and energy. He never treated his cancer but he smoked some marijuana to ease his pain and encourage his appetite.

We live in Oregon. He went the right-to-die route. After following the law’s requirements, he acquired the necessary morphine pill. I was one of the two people he asked to witness his choice. The other was his daughter.

He made his choice and talked to his family about it. A date was selected. He said his good-byes. His family joined him on the selected day. It was over in less than an hour on one summer morning.

George suffers from brain cancer. Brain cancer is the latest problem that began a few years ago. In his sixties, he discovered he was suffering non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He beat that. Then cancer was found in one place. Then another. They were beat. Then it was found in his brain.

He began the fight. Stem cell replacement treatment was endured. You know the tale: drugs, side-effects, detached retinas, financial drain, many doctor visits, hospital stays and ambulance rides. He’s a shell of what he was, with little hair and a lopsided, melon-shaped head. He fights on. He has sworn to beat it. His wife doesn’t believe he can. She’s waiting for his death as he is not.

This last weekend, he went to the hospital because his nose was constantly dripping and was worsening. Turned out to be brain fluid. All that treatment has made his bones and tissues porous.

This comes up in because of my wife’s statement regarding Tucker.

My wife has RA. She’s on treatment. It deals with her symptoms and relieves them with their pain, stiffness, sleeping, eating and thinking issues.

I’ve been resisting having Tucker given treatments. I’ve learned keeping him on a grain-free diet helps. L-lysine helps. But the steroid and AB do the best job, giving him a few days of relief.

My wife said, “Speaking as one who suffers pain, I want anything that gives any relief.” She, like George, has vowed to fight on forever. She fears side-effects.

But I thought, yes, you don’t want pain, but you’re still going to continue to endure pain as you fight on, planning to fight on until everything is gone and the disease claims you, and you die. The rest of us will also die from something, fight or no fight.

Her mother, too, approaching ninety, lives in an assisted living home. She can barely feed herself. Everything else requires assistance. Ambulance rides and hospital visits for new issues is a recurring quarterly event.

It’s a curiosity to me. I have no diseases and suffer no pain.I’m lucky as hell. That probably colors my insights. I think, why endure more pain to fight? Are you being selfish, living in denial, or living in hope that some treatment, or a new treatment will come along and save you?

I’ve been injured and sick. I do know pain. Flu, pneumonia, mono. I’ve had a broken neck, cut off part of a toe with a lawn mower, had injuries requiring stitches on my head (three times, three places) besides requiring stitches in my chin and ear lobe, and had a dislocated wrist that needed to be broken and reset, requiring me to wear a cast and have pins through my hand and arm.

I’ve seen what George’s fight does to his wife. He endures the treatments and symptoms; she experiences huge collateral damages, drinking more and more to cope, emptying bank accounts, selling their house, her life on hold.

I stand with Walt, myself. That’s probably why he asked me to be a witness.

That’s the theory for myself. But like many things, how we believe we’ll act and how we’ll actually act often have a gap between the vision and the execution.

4

It’s Like —

I’ve been further defining the ideopat.

The ideapat is used as part of a telepathic process among the Travail Avresti Forus and Seth, and the Travail Favrashi Forus and Seth in my novel in progress, ‘Long Summer’. 

It’s more than telepathy. Calling it ‘telepathy’ demeans its full range. I felt, in order to be logical and consistent about its use in the arcs, character development and plot, I needed to further define and understand the ideopat.

First, within the ideopat is the phena. Phena is derived from phenomon. The phena is the emotional piece of the ideopat. To help understand it, I think of how drops of waters come together to form torrents. This is generally how the phena comes across on the ideopat. It’s a perception of separate processes and impressions aggregating into an over-arching view.

Generally; exceptions exist. In this way, I think of vision and human differences with their vision. The classic example for me is the ability to see a fastball and the ball’s movement through the air. Not everyone has that ability but some do, and that makes them special.

Good; that was a decent start.

After deeper thinking, I found this video a friend had posted on Facebook.

You can argue, as many have, about whether this is a vortex, and point out that some of the planets are in the wrong orbits, and whether this is true, but it stimulated my thinking. That’s why I’m sharing this. Seeing it, I thought, yes! This gives me greater insight into the ideopat and its structure and motion. There’s a position of recurring motion on one level that doesn’t take in the greater points of view about what’s happening within the ideopat. Beautiful.

The Forus and Seth can also use the ideopat to experience the world through one another’s. After some thought about the development of the skill and individual abilities, I decided that they would need to provide this aspect with a name. Eventually, I came up with sensta as the visual and auditory flows within the phena. As Travail Kidder mature, the sensta is the first aspect of the phena they experience. Their reaction to it guides their further development and direction. Some are overwhelmed. When that happens, they’re trained in how to close the sensta. Of course, closing the sensta to them closes the phena and the ideopat. So they can’t be Forus or Seth but must be named and become something else in the society.

Then I recognized that those for those with the wherewithal to know, the pentha is like an atmosphere, with richly developed layers.

That’s a brief insight into the pentha. In my notes, it takes up a few pages.

The pentha is just one piece. Next up was the ideopat’s true telepathic aspect. The Travail refer to this as the

Now, among this, a very few can perceive the mutex and the saiki. The mutex are the combined threads that make up the flows which become the exopatheia and phena. (Note: the Travail call the threads the sper.) For those who can perceive this level of the ideopat, it’s like seeing the results after white light passes through a prism. What others can only experience the pentha as the white light, they see the resulting rainbow. The greater the ability for them to perceive and segregate the mutex and spers, the more powerful their telepathic abilities. For the normal Forus and Seth, they don’t perceive the mutex and spers but know one another through exposure, repetition and ultimately, familiarity with others’ ‘telepathic voice’.

But one step past all of this, on the very highest level of ability, those that can see sense and see past the pentha, exopatheia and mutex, and find the individual spers and follow them back to the actual person where they originate. This psychic representation is called the saiki. This is so far beyond the skill levels of most that a majority of Travail Forus and Seth don’t believe they exist, that those who thought they’d seen them in the past must have been imagining them. So the saiki is dismissed.

But Travail Avresti Forus Ker has developed the ability to perceive the saiki. He’s not only seeing the saiki of the Travail Forus, but also the Seth and the rest of the Travail, not just his race (the Avresti), but the other races as well. He’s even perceiving the saiki for the Humans and then for the Monad.

And most interesting and frightening for him, he can see the saiki of death. That makes him wonder: is there a saiki for life as well?

And then things really start getting interesting for him.

After that, I set about writing the limitations and further defining the exceptions.

Most of today’s writing session was devoted to fleshing this out and documenting it. I only actually wrote a thousand words in the novel. A few hours have passed. I still had half a cup of mocha remaining when I stopped writing. Just finished that as I wrote this post.

It’s been a good day of writing like crazy.

 

 

7

Meet and Greet: 12/10/16

Reblogged on WordPress.com

Source: Meet and Greet: 12/10/16

Danny has offered writers and bloggers another chance to meet and connect over on Dream Big. I hope you take the opportunity to see what others are offering.

Enjoy the writing, create a vision and pursue the dream. Cheers

 

0

Grokking It

I grok the story but don’t know if others can. It’s the writing challenge: you see, hear, feel and experiences these stories being told in details and colors and sounds technology can’t approach. Your job, Writer, is to capture these events, people and places, and organize it in a coherent, satisfying and entertaining matter.

That’s my interpretation of writing. Yours may vary.

Grok is a word that Robert Heinlein created in ‘A Stranger In A Strange Land’. It’s a classic novel. His expression, grok, has spread like wildflowers in the spring, going far beyond a word in a novel to have other meetings. The essence of grok remains the same for me: to intuitively grasp and understand a matter. It has larger and more expansive definitions and usage, but that’s the essential distilled for my use.

I’m encountering the grok gap while I’m writing. It’s a pretty familiar with whatever I’m writing. I grok what’s happening in my novel. I need to explain it to everyone who isn’t me. That meant spending a few days further defining terms and relationships. The big one is the ideopat. It is telepathy among the Travail Avresti Forus and Seth, and the Travail Favrashi Forus and Seth but telepathy is but one component among the names, gults, vhylla and races. I needed another term for one of the other components because it doesn’t fit with human knowledge and experiences.

While researching my invention, which ended up being termed the phena for now, after reading about consciousness, phenomenon and epiphenomenon, I grok and researched it for a while. After all, phena and grok share commonalities. The insights I encountered about what grok meant and was used in the original novel opened my thinking. Such sessions are always the most satisfying and treasured for me.

I hope you grok what I mean.

5

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