100 Words:  "Sing then, O Muse, about ... yourself!" What's your muse like?

She tickles with her tongue,
And she pokes with pitchfork tines,
Enticing with seductive voice,
And wheedling with whines.

She flees when I pursue her
But creeps up unawares,
Striking at most awkward times
With lightning-bolted snares.

Keyboard tapping mutters
And calls to contemplate
Offspring wild and wonderful
With her to procreate.

I ignore her at the peril
Of guilt and shame and woe,
For every child I didn't birth
Right when she told me so.

She's a harsh but lovely mistress
Who weeps when I refuse,
Ah, what will-o-wisps call out to me
When sings my fickle muse.

I had an idea for a novel today. Probably unsellable, but one I'd like to write, anyway.

I think I know how it ends. I know some stuff in the middle (though not necessarily stuff that leads to that end). And I have the first three paragraphs.

Hmmmm. Might do this for NaNoWriMo.

Very, very weird.

Last evening, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my next installment of the Midway storyball. It was getting late, and I was wrapping things up and I was reading some of the new stuff. I went to the Cast of Characters page (which was a triffic idea, whosever it was) and realized there were a couple of gaps.

So i started filling them in. And I put a bit here, and a bit there, and filled in some stuff from one of the background stories Ana had written, I think.

And found a contradiction. In stories A and B, it was mentioned that it was Cruickshank who had won the property and built the initial Midway. But Kate had just written a fabulous tale around the founding of the Midway (using a title I'd thrown out there), and it identified Ronald Oberst as the guy behind it.

Now, given the nature of these storyballs, you get contradictions. It's not going to be letter-perfect, right? But it bugged me. Especially since those names were familiar, and the more I dug, the more they showed up in different places.

Now, why would that be? What was the truth?

I am not one of those folks who obsessively reads every story in these storyballs and tries to tie it together. Indeed, it's usually too complex for me to follow without a lot of effort, so I read things for what they are, enjoy the impression of teach tale, get an occasional "Aha!" recollection, and leave it at that. Margie's the one in our pair who absorbs all these bits and then nods and says, "The butler did it, obviously," just like it was a mystery movie.

But in this case I was reading along and putting down stuff in the Cast page and getting the Obersts and the Cruickshanks straight, and it suddenly just hit me. I saw the pattern. I knew what was going on, really going on!

The irony is that I was suddenly seized with a fervor like I was some conspiracy theorist who's finally figured out how the assassination of JFK and the destruction of the Challenger were, actually, and incontrovertably, connected. Everywhere I turned, I started seeing connections, things that tied the Big Story together, mere coincidences that now were intentional.

Take names. I did Google lookups on the meaning of Cruickshank and Oberst, and it all fit! Hell, I looked at the meaning of McIntyre and it fit. I looked at ideas people, different people, had thrown out there, some of them intentional, some of them just in passsing, and they abruptly fit into another great pattern.

Now, that's the thing, of course. Some of it was intentional. Some of it wasn't. I really don't think that the first person who mentioned Ron Oberst really chose the name intentionally. Certainly not with an intention that let me tie it to Yggdrasil and angels and Nietzche. That's not a pattern that's really there.

But the brain is a fabulous thing, truly fabulous. We're pattern-seekers. Patterns in what's around us help us survive. "Hmmmm ... leopard prints, a dark patch of jungle ahead, a low rumble -- must be dangerous ahead, let's not go gather berries over there." And, of course, we therefore impose patterns that aren't there, hence cloud-watching and conspiracy theorizing.

But it was beautiful, beautiful the way it all fit together (and you can always find ways to get all the really weird stuff together). And I was Googling and writing and taking notes and copying paragraphs out of old stories and I felt like one of those guys who covers their apartment wall with Post-It notes and pieces of string and newspaper clippings, all of which show how the Girl Scouts engineered the 2000 election results, as part of their great war against the Illuminati and their task masters in IBM. I was seized by a fervor ...

... and even when I was done, awake far too late (especially since I had to get up at 4:30a to get to the airport) and shut things down and turned off the light and lay down and closed my eyes, I was still thinking about it. In fact, after two minutes, I turned on the lights again and scribbled an added bit on a pad of paper by the bed.

If I had thought I could finish it, I'd have been tempted to try and kick it out, t'hell with going to bed.

The real irony thus becomes that I wrote a story about someone who had figured out the truth (or had it told to her) and was being driven mad by the whole thing, rambling from connection to connection, just as I had been -- though, to be sure, in a dramatically rising fashion. But life was imitating art a wee too closely. "Write what you know," as they say.

So was up at 4:30a. I was sitting at the gate to my flight to Manchester by 6a. I pulled out the notebook ... and started writing.

I wrote for close to an hour there, then another thirty minutes on the plane down, then sitting at the waiting area in Manchester. I spotted an outlet at a Starbucks and bought a Macchiato and went and sat over there, but the outlets were unpowered. Rats.

But I had a three hour layover for an 11:05a flight, so that gave me time. I sat there and furiously typed, trying to get it finished and posted before I left, knowing I could get a WiFi connection, and fearful, perhaps, that the plane would get shot down by those Girl Scouts (or "Girl Guides" as they're cunningly called) and their shoulder-mounted missiles as guided by the space satellites and ...

I got the story finished. I signed in. I did some quick lookups, added a couple of bits, realize ...

... well, realized I had the narrative a bit off. The story teller who was giving over a lot of this info, the person who I'd decided was the instigator of the tale, hadn't actually been talking to my protagonist, but someone else. My protagonist had shown up briefly to get a kiss, but that was all.

Well, not too hard to get around that, and not a lot of time to figure it out. I worked out something, tacked on an ending ...

... well, that's the trick, isn't it? Anyone can come up with a great story idea, but it actually has to wrap up at the end.

I quickly posted, including a few formatting and spelling errors, shut down the machine, and raced for the gate, getting there around 10:30a, as boarding had already begun.

Whew!

It was weird. I talk about the Muse, sometimes, seizing control. It really felt this way this time. The idea seized me, and, obsessive-compulsive, I had no choice but trail along behind, filling in the details. God help me if I ever get a real conspiracy theory under my skin.

Now, of course, is the story any good? I have no idea -- I need to check it out tonight and see if it holds together as well as it felt like writing it. Getting so involved in the underlying story bits was unusual for me, and I'm not sure if it's a strength. And then there's the whole social thing of, possibly, stomping all over someone else's story idea. That's another reason, I think, I tend not to be a Prime Mover in these things, preferring to hover on the periphery, tossing in occasional ideas, or nudges, but letting others come up with What's Really Going On.

And ... well, heck, it's just as likely that someone else will come up with something that obsoletes what I've written, no matter how clever. That's the danger and joy of the collaborative process, half cooperation, half competition.

Having great fun. Weird, sometimes, but fun.

Finally finished "Dragon's Lair," which contains at least two co-worker names, two hidden movie references, and an unintended-when-originally-written video game mention. The Muse sort of abandoned me after getting me started with the tale, which forced me into choosing one of several conclusions I had in mind. I also realized that the odd tie I'd intended to "Misanthrope" simply didn't work.

Oh, well. Fun enough for government work.

So I had the title chosen for the next Storyball tale, and had a general idea of what I was doing with it, and that was all okay and all was sweetness and light and ...

... WHAM.

That was the sound the Muse slamming a mini-sledge right below the point on the back of my skull, then dragging me off into the bushes and making me have my way with her. Which translates into a comletely different story that required a different title and ... all ... different ...

It was all I could do to finish lunch and my walk and get some work done before I sat down and cranked out far too many words heading toward either something simple and straightforward or something fun that descends into darkness and blood. Knowing how the Midway's been working, my money's on the latter.

*sigh*

It wasn't writing, per se, but the Muse often gets the proverbial wild hair up her ass about all sorts of things (for good or for ill). This morning, it was a sudden epiphany about how I could redo my WIST quotations database using MT as the database engine. Despite the fact that I had way more work to do than hours to do it in, once she had me by the balls and started twisting, I had no choice but to do up the specification for it.

Hopefully that will keep her happy for the moment.

The muse is sitting on my shoulder, nearly invisible, whisper quiet.

"Nice blog," she says. "Good work."

And, "So you can note projects you're working on."

And, "Tsk. So many unfinished bits and pieces."

And, "So ... when you going to get back to work on Catspaw?"

I've managed to get the "Writing & Language" category from my main blog over here, and the broken out to the various categories (further revised). Done a fair amount of clean-up. Tweaked some templates and the stylesheet. Sadly observed the bit rot of the past four and a half years.

Felt noodged by the Muse to get the frelling lead out and finish Catspaw.

Things left to do:

1. Clean up the DDtB category to delete entries that really belong only over here.
2. Make some observations on DDtB about using the default MT3.2 templates and stylesheets.
3. Start pulling down and making permanent copies of what writing I have out there on other sites that might (like the Lexicon) vanish softly and silently away.

First off, a review of last year's New Year Resolutions:

1. Spend more time with Kitten.

Hmmmm. Yes and no. Enjoyed my post-pre-school drives home with her, but those have gotten much less frequent with her bus riding from Kindergarten. I'd say this remains a necessity. Knowing myself, I need to set up a standard time for this sort of thing -- when she gets home, or when I got home, or at bed time (difficult), or "Katherine Thursdays" or something of that sort. I get too easily distracted (to/from everything).

2. Try to cut back on external commitments some. Family first. In particular, as rewarding as the various activities at church have been, I’ve overcommitted there on both the Search and the Vestry stuff. Nothing to do for that (and I’m not going to back out on them), but as those responsibilities begin to wind down, I don’t plan on going out of my way to backfill that time with more commitments there. Easier said, perhaps, than done.

Well, I'm not sure that I succeeded here, either, though I certainly tried. Coming off of Vestry will be a big help. Unfortunately, work commitments have ramped up even as other commitments have ramped down.

On the other hand, I have, as noted elsewhere, been spending more time with Margie (CoH-wise) than our parallel pasttimes in the past have allowed.

3. Write. Edit. Write. To wit, a minimum of 15 minutes per day on writing activities. Minimum. Whatever it takes.

I was really glad I did the pseudo-NaNoWriMo over November, and I've done a fair amount of light writing for the CoH boards. But, really, didn't do much with this. Bleah.

4. Keep the weight off, and walk 1,000 miles to nowhere.

Aha! A pretty decent success. Actually dropped added weight and made it to 1,500 miles! Who'd have thought that the stereotypical physical health side of a Resolutions List would be what I ended up doing successfully?

So ... what to take for next year?

Hrm.

Well, hell, I don't see much reason to change the list:

1. Spend more time with Kitten.

2. Try to cut back on external commitments some. Family first.

3. Write. Edit. Write.

4. Keep the weight off, and walk 1,500 miles to nowhere.

How's them apples?

Happy New Year!

So, a review of last year's resolutions:

1. Spend more time with Kitten.
2. Get back to our cleaning regimen.
3. Finish the buffet.
4. Write. Edit. Write.
5. Oh, yeah ? lose weight.

Hmmm.

I did okay on (1), though I can certainly do better. If nothing else, though, we get some good "quality time" on the drive home from pre-school.

We're in real trouble on (2), and I don't quite know what to do about it. Well, yes, I do, actually, but ...

We managed (3), albeit a year after the project started.

I was pretty sad on (4).

But the year was a triumph with (5). I haven't weighed myself in a couple of months, but all the Size 36s I got for Christmas are still fitting, despite three weeks of eating, drinking, and being merry.

So, what for this year?

1. Spend more time with Kitten.

2. Try to cut back on external commitments some. Family first.

   In particular, as rewarding as the various activities at church have been, I've overcommitted there on both the Search and the Vestry stuff. Nothing to do for that (and I'm not going to back out on them), but as those responsibilities begin to wind down, I don't plan on going out of my way to backfill that time with more commitments there.

   Easier said, perhaps, than done.

3. Write. Edit. Write.

   To wit, a minimum of 15 minutes per day on writing activities. Minimum. Whatever it takes.

4. Keep the weight off, and walk 1,000 miles to nowhere.

If I can do all that, I'll be a pretty happy camper for 2005.

On which note, a very happy New Year's Eve to you all!

Giving a pass (again) this year to National Novel Writing Month, for two hopefully-very-good reasons.

1. I'm still revising (getting back into the next draft) my previous NaNoWriMo project, Catspaw, so I should really work on that over the course of November, rather than something new.

2. NO TIME! NO TIME! BOOKED UP! TRAVEL! HOLIDAYS! WORK! KID! WIFE! HOME! STUFF! NO TIME! NO TIME!

Aside from that, I might have considered taking the plunge again.

Ah, well, there's always NaNoWriMo '05 ...

(reminder via De)

As a child, I often failed to take off my glasses before going to bed. Perhaps it was an attempt to keep at bay the fuzziness around me, or maybe just forgetfulness, but my mom would always make a joke about Schubert and take them off of me.

Franz Schubert, it seems, used to sleep with his glasses on, so that if he woke up in the middle of the night with an idea, he could write it down before it went away.

Sometimes my drifting-off time is like that. I'll be lying there, thinking about this story or that game, and abrupt a whole page of dialog just appears like a dagger before me, waiting to be plucked.

I have two choices at that point. I can nod, say Good work, old bean to myself, roll over, and promptly forget all about it. Or I can get up and do something about it. Which, to avoid bugging the sainted wife (there appears to have been no Mrs. Schubert for him to worry about), usually means going into the bathroom, grabbing one of the plenitude of pens off the counter, fumbling for my glasses, finding a piece of relatively blank paper, and scribbling down what I've written under the indirect light from the shower room.

Which I did last night. And that's easily a week's worth of Catspaw ideas right there.

Even when I'm not writing, the Muse has ways of poking me with her pitchfork ...

I've actually been getting some writing done recently. Not a lot -- not all that I'd like -- but at least some.

I do the daily Oneword (as you've all suffered through). That's an interesting exercise to keep the juices flowing.

I've been trying to keep up with Catspaw, too, with the not-so-subtle flogging encouragement of certain friends. I've not been doing as much as I could, but I'm trying to keep up via a modified Zelazny Method:

I try to write every day. I used to try to write four times a day, minimum of three sentences each time. It doesn't sound like much but it's kinda like the hare and the tortoise. If you try that several times a day you're going to do more than three sentences, one of them is going to catch on. You're going to say "Oh boy!" and then you just write. You fill up the page and the next page But you have a certain minimum so that at the end of the day, you can say "Hey I wrote four times today, three sentences, a dozen sentences. Each sentence is maybe twenty word long. That's 240 words which is a page of copy, so at least I didn't goof off completely today. I got a page for my efforts and tomorrow it might be easier because I've moved as far as I have.

I have an alarm set twice a day during weekdays (9 and 2, to be exact) to write something in Catspaw. If it rings, and I say, "I'm too busy," then I try to respond, "What, to write three whole sentences?" If I say, "I'm too uninspired," then I try to respond, "What, to write three whole sentences?"

If I hit the snooze on the alarms, though, I'm doomed. You can monitor my successes by watching the Catspaw button on the blogroll bob up (or not) each day.

Through that method, at least, Catspaw has been progressing by a few hundred words or so a day. Which feels nowhere near as exciting as it should be, but there you go.

The last writing I've been doing to any length have been Sian's game journals for Doyce's Nobilis try-out short game campaign, Chrysalis. It's not great literature (as if anything else I do is), but it's been entertaining and even a bit fulfilling (in an exploring-the-character way) to me. The most recent effort went up last night.

I suppose, as long as I keep banging on the keyboard for something other than memos and e-mail, I should be satisfied ...

Nothing profound here, just an update on How Things are Going.

It's been snowing on and off here in Denver for most of the week. The streets clear out to dryness just in time to get dusted again. That's all to the good -- we so badly need the moisture, but we don't need it all in one day.

It makes driving in more interesting, of course. I've gotten so gun-shy at the Saturn on snow that even a light coat of muddy slush is enough to get me white-knuckling my way to work. I take the I-25/I-70 route, not because it's faster, or because I enjoy maneuvering through T-Rex, but because it's highly traveled, and thus snow will be more likely to be melted away or plowed or sprayed or pushed aside.

I'm not driving myself to Bear Trap Ranch this afternoon for the retreat, thank heavens. Margie needs to have the van here for Kitten Transport, and the road is not the best for the Saturn under summer circumstances; if it's wintry, I'd as soon not. So I'll be riding down with someone else, who has a Jeep with 4WD. I dislike riding with strangers (being my father's son and all), but it'll be worth it.

Things have been busy. I think we've kind of gotten back up onto the wavefront after our time away, balancing and maneuvernig frantically down the pipeline of commitments. The big focus of our weeks is the Monday night Alpha -- Margie's especially, doing the cooking for 100, but I've got my own time sunk into it, as well as the peripheral Margie support -- going to the store, helping watch after Kitten, etc.

Gaming has only started getting moving again -- the advantage of dragging your GM off on vacation with you. D&D at the house tonight, since Margie will be single-parenting with Katherine while I'm away. Keep her in your thoughts ...

We're still not caught up with everything, though. There's still a Christmas tree in the living room (artificial, of course, and de-decorated), and stacks of mail that need sifting (though I made sure the water bill was paid before I left), and other such overhead tasks.

And, of course, my Muse has been prodding me about getting Catspaw finished. And, in fact, she gave me an idea for advancing the plot that I need to follow up on ...

... as soon as I get make some time ...

We wrapped up Doyce's Star Wars campaign before November/December hiatus last night. Next installment to begin in January, and ten years later, which will move us just to about the Episode II era. I suspect things will not be going well for Dag in the interim; his relationship with Nayda is doomed to a bitter end.

Got to sleep in today, while Margie took care of Katherine. Then it was off on errands (including an errand of mercy to drop off the Firefly tape from last night to the Testerfolks; Doyce ran out of space on his).

Then home again, home again, jiggety-jig, and swinging into action on Operation: MyGodTheParentsAreComing. This afternoon's target was the dining room. Tomorrow: the breakfast table.

Been thinking about my short story I'm doing this month instead of NaNoWriMo. Now that I'm at the keyboard, of course, I'm finding myself fatigued, and with a zillion excuses not to write.

Such as Excuse #27: Boy, I'd Better Post Something In My Blog ...

Not doing NaNoWriMo this year. Nope.

But I do have a short-storyish idea I thought of last night, going to sleep. My muse was placated enough by the promise that she didn't prod me with her pitchfork right then and there until I got up and wrote it, which is her usual MO.

(It's all Doyce's fault.)

The chill, snow-laden wind whipped around the diminutive figure -- a tiny pixie of a woman, perhaps four inches tall, huddled on the window sill, her long mauve gown rippling about her as she glommed her face against the glass, gazing longingly at the bustle of creative activity within, her wide, piercing green eyes glistening wetly in the glow of computer monitors, her shapely ears catching a hint of keyboard click-a-clack over the howl of the blustery weather. She sighed, and made a small whimper in the back of her throat, like a dog wanting to come inside. Another gust of wind battered at her little faerie wings, tossed about her long, dark hair, and almost blew her pitchfork -- leaning, forgotten, against the window frame -- down to the ground below.

My little Muse is going to spend the next two months on that window sill, peering in at all the activity involved in this year's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

Last year's effort put a lot of strains on the domestic front -- November, for a variety of reasons, is a really crappy month for me to do this -- and so I promised Margie I'd take this year (at least) off.

And, yeah, it's the right thing to do, and it will make dealing with Thanksgiving easier, and early Christmas shopping, and other creative and mundane endeavors during November, and I won't be spending every evening, and every weekend pounding at the keyboard, sticking Margie with Katherine-care, and I know all that, and that's fine, and I agree that my decision is what I should do and, even, that it's what I want to do.

Really.

I just wish my Muse would stop turning back from that window to glower accusingly at me.

(Reminders via Julia and Doyce)

I almost missed my deadline here, but I managed to squeak it out. Yes, it's another installment of Blogger Insider, where random bloggers send 10-15 probing, penetrating, and otherwise inappropriately touching questions to each other.

My partner this week is Eleanor Holmes. Of the three BI folks I've been linked with, she's doubtless the most "compatible," since she enjoys both RPGs and "Undercover Blues." Her being from Australia lends a mysterious, exotic, foreign air to her great question -- along with that cute Australian accent.

Since I just sent my questions to her (almost missing it, here in Faerie), she probably hasn't answered them yet, but here are hers to me.

1. Ah-ha... Someone I could have lengthy LotR discussions with, I see! So, what would you define as the central theme of the books, and how does that relate to the movie? (I feel like I'm setting exam questions here!) I think that Peter Jackson has nailed it right on the head. The theme of the books is the influential role of the individual in the affairs of history. Sure, you've got this grand, sweeping, epic drama, with prophecies and the like scattered like buckshot. But, bottom line, the story is about how a couple of very small, very ordinary country folks manage, through great personal struggle and sacrifice, to overthrow the greatest evil in the land. Frodo is the least likely individual to do away with the Ring. Aragorn, Gandalf, Galadriel, even Boromir -- all the Mighty and Powerful would seem far better choices. But against all odds, his personal dedication -- and the dedication and love of his friend, Sam, make it happen, where any of the others would ultimately have failed. Great stuff, and very unexpected for most people.

2. Blogging: the lovely SJ stole my initial question (what made you start?) so I'll ask: if you could have your blog be as beloved and famous as any other idolized blog, which would you pick? Eep! That's a tough one, as there are many other blogs out there which I admire (as the Link List o' Admired Blogs off to the left indicates). I'd probably have to say InstaPundit. I have a lot of admiration for the author (even when I don't agree with him), and I think that in addition to something informative and entertaining, he's actually providing a public service. Good stuff.

3. What's your favorite smell in the world? Sauteeing onions and garlic. The basis for many, many, many good meals that Margie has cooked me.

4. I'm impressed to see that you did NaNoWriMo; I tried, but found that I just didn't have time, and stopped. Tell us a bit about where you got your inspiration, and words of wisdom you'd pass to those trying it next year? Well, I have to confess that I will probably not do it next year, largely because it shot the bloody hell out of both my November and December schedules. That having been said, I was inspired by my wife (who supported me), my pal Doyce (who suggested the damned thing in the first place, the Infernal Gateway Drug that he is), any number of comic book writers, Kevin Smith, Stephen Brust, Neil Gaiman, and my own personal muse, who is still lolling, sated, somewhere in the back of my head. Words of wisdom I have to pass on from Roger Zelazny:

I try to write every day. I used to try to write four times a day, minimum of three sentences each time. It doesn't sound like much but it's kinda like the hare and the tortoise. If you try that several times a day you're going to do more than three sentences, one of them is going to catch on. You're going to say "Oh boy!" and then you just write. You fill up the page and the next page But you have a certain minimum so that at the end of the day, you can say "Hey I wrote four times today, three sentences, a dozen sentences. Each sentence is maybe twenty word long. That's 240 words which is a page of copy, so at least I didn't goof off completely today. I got a page for my efforts and tomorrow it might be easier because I've moved as far as I have".

5. When you write, what do you need in your immediate environment to make you productive and efficient? Not much. A keyboard (because I can type about 40% as fast as I can think, which is far better than with any other medium). Some scrap paper. If I want to really pound things out, music and earphones help. Margie saved my butt during NaNoWriMo by taking care of Katherine while I sequestered myself in the guest room.

6. You're a gamer! Hooray! So, go on. Tell us about your fave character.
Please? :) Based on the verbiage I've dedicated to him, it would have to be Grinthorn, a half-elvish bard. I played him in a roll-your-own campaign during college, wrote a novel about him (which is not yet finally finished), extended his adventures into an abortive PBeM Mage: The Ascension campaign, and then turned him into a PBeM Amber character. In all incarnations, he's a sassy bastard (literally), whose taken his childhood experiences of rejection and turned them into an iconoclastic turn-about rejection of authority. Which is nothing like me, but he's the closest to my "voice" of all the characters I've ever run.

7. One of my favorite questions: If you could live in the 'reality' of any
one RPG or game system, what would you pick? What kind of person would you be? Frankly, the "reality" of most game systems frightens the bejeebers out of me, since they are all front-loaded with lots of threats. Not that RL isn't threatening, but it's threats I know and can (mostly) manage. I'd probably either choose Phage's Amber system, as one of the kids of that realm, or some sort of a metahuman hero in one of any number of supers RPGs. The latter is usually relatively straightforward and familiar, but with the bennies of some sort of keen power. The former would be far riskier, but with the possibilities of more significant powers. Plus I'd like to meet Fiona. And Flora.

[Question 8 never arrived. No, really.]

9. SJ swiped the Desert Island book question, so I'll chime in with Desert
Island Discs: pick a dozen albums you'd take with you to aforementioned
desert island. (Alright alright, you can have something to play the albums
on if you like.) Not fair! I'm hundreds of miles away from my collection! Yeesh! Hmmmm. A few I can think of: