Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I feel the same. Juggling, a scene, character, setting, or bit of dialogue crystallizes into a pattern. That’s the start. Then it’s a continual process of juggling, crystallizing, filtering, processing, and typing, exploring, finding, and filling the pattern.
I thought for a while before posting an Orson Scott Card quote. His hateful rants have twisted my fond memories of him and his novels. I decided this quote should be posted and remembered because of its truth.
Card’s political views, rants, novels, and this quote reveal the complexity of being a human being. We can be great but flawed. I admire Card’s skills, but his flaws sadden me. Like others celebrities I’ve seen exposed and other people despairing of finding ugly truths about people they admire, I try to separate their work and their life. But it’s a struggle; under the work that I enjoy, I can’t resist knowing the artists’ ugliness. Once known, it’s can’t be forgotten or ignored.
Was it a worm, a thread, a nibble, a spark? I can’t codify what it was that happened as I rushed through a few quick chores (with three cats eyeing me from comfortable curls to ensure no noisy machines were engaged). The brain was freed from thinking, and the muses thundered in with one of those OMG shots that started me laughing and saying, “Yes,” (which caused the cats to raise their heads in questioning unison).
As Thomas Weaver reminds me once in a while, many writers begin in the middle, without full awareness of what’s happening. Following the spark of a concept that flames into a story, we let the characters arrive to illuminate events and motives. As I’ve gone through those steps to create a massive arc that covers four novels (each with their own arc of discovery and story-telling) and contemplate the end (which was already written), ideas sparked (or were there loose threads that I pulled, or a worm wiggling into my imagination), showing me that I’d not completely thought out and understood the concept. Even though I’ve been writing about it since July of 2016 and there are over a million words, there was more to know and write about.
This newest addition tickles me, and I think about it with amused excitement. It has a “holy cow” aura. Such fun. And in a few minutes this morning, as the cats watched, I was reminded again how much I enjoy fiction writing, and why.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Some clever folks have come out with coffee in a cone. Which, you know, immediately raises interest in, what kind of cone, and why coffee? Why not beer, or wine in a cone?
The coffee in a cone uses a waffle cone. The problem of coffee leaking through the cone quickly arose. The entrepreneur addressed the issue by adding four layers of chocolate to the cone. If you’re not a chocolate lover (I can’t believe those words can even be true), then you might think, doesn’t entice me, thanks. I don’t like chocolate. But surely other coatings can be applied to the cone. Like caramel or maple, or something. I don’t know. Don’t ask me, I just think here.
Returning to collateral ideas, I brainstormed about what kind of cone I can use to hold my beer, and what I should coat it with. Cheese?
Pardon me a moment while I address my gag reflex.
I like beer and cheese but I canna wrap my brain around drinking beer in a cheese coated cone. Hmmm, wine…maybe.
Can you imagine ordering? “Hi, I’d like a red blend wine cone.”
“Which red?”
“Three Vineyards Oregon blend.”
“What kind of cone, sir?”
“Do you have anything gluten free?”
“Yes, we have a pretty nice olive and rosemary rice cone. I have samples here. Would you like to taste it?”
“Oh, yes, thanks. Oh, that’s good. And that’s gluten free? Okay, I’ll try that.”
“Yes, sir, what size?”
“Grande.”
“And what kind of cheese would you like as your coating?”
“Hmm…I’ve having a red wine…do you have sharp cheddars?”
“Yes, we have several cheddar variations, including white. There’s the list, up here behind me.”
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t see that. Hah. If it was a snake….”
“Would you like to sample any cheese?”
“Yes, let me try that Face Rock sharp white cheddar, thanks. I always like Face Rock’s cheeses. Yes, that’s good. I’ll go with that.”
Fifteen dollars and a few minutes later, you have your grande cheese wine cone. Of course, even with the coating, the coffee dissolves its cone cup in about three minutes. I believe we’d have a about the same amount of time for the wine cheese cone. Chug, chug.
Going back to the beer cone, we can probably have an entire sandwich in a cone, you know, like turkey with Swiss cheese. Using a rye flour cone, we’ll wrap the innards with the turkey and layer it with hot melted Swiss cheese. Then we’ll deep fry that sucker, fill it with beer (“What beer do you want, sir?”) and sell it at state fairs. And then, someday in the future (which, I know, is a bit redundant, but I’m selling an idea here), we can have National Drinks in a Cone Day.
Next: Pizza in a cone. And then stir-fry in a cone, and burritos in a cone….
Isn’t progress amazing?
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
A novel in progress features aliens, but I can’t see them. I know who they are, why they’re there and what they want, but beyond that, they’re not coming into my head.
I thought about all the aliens I know from movies and books. Superman is an alien but that’s not the sort of alien wanted. Didn’t want ET, and the creatures from Alien and Predator didn’t work. Nor did the man and robot from The Day the Earth Stood Still. MIB , the Star Trek franchise, Doctor Who, and Babylon 5 have many varieties of aliens but nothing that fits my requirements. Larry Niven’s aliens are interesting and intriguing but didn’t turn me toward what I think my book needs. Independence Day, Mars Attacks, The Body Snatchers, Dark City (I’m not really sure the strangers are aliens) were considered and rejected, as were the War of the Worlds invaders, and the creatures from Species and V. So was The Thing. I always liked Orson Scott Card’s alien in The Speaker for the Dead and Ender’s Game but they don’t work for my application.
The closest thing to my thoughts were from Clark’s The Puppet Masters. They don’t quite work, neither.
Gotta walk and think about it more. It’ll come to me.
Michael Seidel, writer 