I went to put in the changes in the manuscript which emerged after this morning’s dream review. I ended up instead reading the first 100 pages, fixing the odd typo. Astonishing experience. Like, I wrote this? It felt like I was reading a novel, and a lot of it seemed new to me. Yet, there was a yang part which remembered writing all of this. Fascinating experience. The other part, as I read, was how the main character changed and changed and changed, growing into the person I’m now so familiar with. Her voice changed. The novel’s voice changed. Just fascinating to reflect. Yes, just like driving through the dark, through a dark and stormy night of unfamiliar land, and then getting up in sunshine and looking back to see where you had been.
He Who’s Like God
My name is Michael. It’s supposed to mean ‘he who’s like God’ in Hebrew. I don’t know how I got the name. Mom blamed Dad; Dad blamed Mom.
I’m mixed about it as a name. Overall, it’s a good name but there’s just so many of us out there.
I’ve used different names at different times for different reasons. Just the other day, I used a different name when I was talking to my wife. I was on a DIY project to fix the oven. As a dedicated Budgeteer, I’m not a noted handyman. But man, I sure do try. So, as my wife was going out the door, I told her, “I vow that this oven will be fixed upon your return, or my name’s not Patrick J. Carpenter.” My name is not Patrick J. Carpenter, of course. That’s the humor of it. I hope.
As a stumbling novelist, I often consider adopting a different name. There are many writers out there known as Michael Seidel. Many are successful and popular. Some are German. There’s also a weather man named Mike Seidel. I think he might be retired. Either way, all those other Michael Seidels cast a shadow over this Michael Seidel. I since speculated, maybe I’ll seek publication as Taylor Sands. Except I looked up Taylor Sands, and that’s a porn star.
Back in the think tank, I changed Sands to Rush. Taylor Rush is a successful doctor. Other options were chased, like Taylor Chase, and rejected after research. For instance, there are 90+ profiles for Taylor Chase in LinkedIn. I finally came up with Taylor Booking.
Taylor Booking, novelist. That might work.
Some Light
Some Light
Tell me all your secrets
I’ll share a few of mine
We can talk and have coffee
Or maybe a glass of wine
You can tell me about your first love
And what you do for fun
About your first kiss, about your last love
And how that came undone
We can walk together under stars
Mention all the past
Or remember funny movies
And laugh until we cry
We can shake hands before we go
Or maybe kiss good night
I’m not looking for that much
I’m just searching for some light
~ m.w.seidel
Little Free Libraries
Little Free Libraries are a wonderful idea. They started in two thousand nine, in Hudson, Wisconsin, when Todd Bol built the first one.
I’ve found seven in Ashland. I enjoy finding them. They’re all beautifully done little buildings on a post, and usually brightly colored, with a glass door on the front. In conjunction with Bol’s original vision, they resemble little school houses. Once found, they must be explored. Sometimes notes are attached.
Transitioning to another idea I like, September 18 was Hideabook day. It’s a thing Goodreads came up with to celebrate ten years of being Goodreads. Coupling my writing and publishing with marketing, Hideabook day, and Little Free Libraries, I bought seven copies of the paperback book version of “Life Lessons with Savanna,” signed them, and put them in the Little Free Libraries around town. I checked two today, and those copies were gone.
I hope people find and enjoy them all.
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.
Michael Seidel, writer 