THE VIEWS OF THE AUTHOR may not reflect whatever he’s thinking about now, or however he’s thinking about it, although they most likely did when he wrote whatever you read; thus and likewise, he is not responsible for anything you do before, while, or after you read whatever he wrote. The author’s responsibility is to communicate as clearly as he can at the time he’s writing, and if he’s failed in that mission then by “God” buckle up and try again. Continue reading “All Purpose Disclaimer”
Tag: creating
Making stuff: up, real, and nicely.
Pithyism#10111
ELECTRONIC CONVENIENCES BECOME OBSTACLES WHEN they pass from novelty to necessity. (Come to think of it, that may be true of everything.)
Advice to (Young) Writers
SEEK IMMORTALITY THROUGH YOUR WRITING — not your writhing.
(Adapted from a quip by Ann.)
5 Thoughts: Why (and How) We Write
HANGING BY OUR COMPUTER IS a sheet of paper I look to for inspiration. Sometimes it inspires me, sometimes it depresses me, but always it gets me back on the horse. It’s called “Why (and How) We Write.” If you too find it useful, please hang it by your computer.
1. Do it for the buzz.
— Stephen King
2. Finish what you start. Keep submitting until it sells.
— Robert Heinlein
3. a) Fanaticize yourself
b) Fanaticize something greater than yourself
c) “Sheer delight in what you are doing.”
— Robert Anton Wilson
4. a) Arrange events in linear order
b) Now arrange them in narrative order.
c) Write the story.
d) Revise the story.
e) FINALISE.
— H. P. Lovecraft
5. “Most of the characteristics which make for success in writing are precisely those which we are all taught to repress … the firm belief that you are an important person, that you are a lot smarter than most people, and that your ideas are so damned important that everybody should listen to you.”
— Robert Anton Wilson, reprise
(BONUS: this little tip, courtesy of Anne Lamott, for which I am axiomatically grateful.)
Wanted: Art Factory
BRIGHT-EYED BUT LIMP-TAILED creator — more ideas than Warhol or Lucas with one-tenth the energy, no pretensions and no contacts — seeks talented but inspiration-dry makers to loose entertaining visions on unsuspecting populace. Preferred media disciplines: comix; publishing; publicity; cartography; lost-wax casting; rocketry and aeronautical/transorbital fabrication; costume design; beekeeping; gaming, including RPG and videotronics; orchestra; robotics; armory; theater and film/video; MOOG synthesizer; CG and model-building; architecture; laser optics.
No pay necessary — work from home in your spare time. Equal returns and credit guaranteed Scout’s honor (“A Cheery Coproduction of _YOUR NAME HERE_ and Neal’s Brain Unlimited”). No poseurs, players or funless wimps need apply. Please direct all serious inquiries (no phone calls please) to scoop at sonic dot net.
Frank Frazetta, RIP
Frank Frazetta: February 9, 1928 – May 10, 2010. Thank you, sir, for bringing us wonders.
Pithyism #5
ART: MANIFESTED INTENTION.
(Sparked by one of those endless arguments over the meaning of “art,” this definition should cover everything from bowerbirds and whalesong to Andy Goldsworthy and the Long Now people to the cup of coffee you made this morning — as well as the tune you hummed while making it.)
Lunar Update: Back to the Redrawing Board
LAST OCTOBER, I POSTED “A Proposal for the Moon of Earth” — “a suitable solar-powered visual display in the lunar crater Tycho, for the purpose of looping Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film ‘2001: A space odyssey.'” The original idea visualized a miles-wide JumboTron that could be seen through a backyard telescope (say, the 90mm Maksutov-Cassegrain in my living room). The seemingly impossible logistics didn’t bother me — after all, it’s Only An Idea, and one for which I’m offering a spurious and very large reward to anyone who can complete it. I put out some feelers, made appropriate noises on appropriate websites, and figured we’d all have a good laugh and go on to the next thing.
Then I heard about the IPN Project, whose goal is “to define the architecture and protocols necessary to permit interoperation of the Internet resident on Earth with other remotely located internets resident on other planets or spacecraft in transit.” And it occurred to me that APftMoE might actually be possible: not by building a giant video display, but a smaller one — oh, say, large enough to fit inside a full-size monolith model and produce an image sharp enough to be transmitted to Earth by a moon-based webcam (see Fig. 1). 
Thus, and from this moment on, APftMoE is no longer dedicated to building a giant video display — we are now dedicated to building a rocket which will deliver and deploy the “TVA-1” module consisting of a power source, webcam, transmitter and monolith with embedded HD display. This should give us a great view of the crater rim in the background, prove less costly of both time and money, and make it more feasible and attractive to potential backers and/or sweat-equititians.
I’ll make a few phone calls. Meanwhile, stay tuned to https://metaphorager.net/lunar-enterprise/ for updates!
Under Oasine: First Chapter Synopsis
AS NOTED EARLIER, THIS BLOG will feature periodic updates on my new Work In Progress, Under Oasine: the adventures of Twiz, Ij, Hapler, and the author as they pursue a desperate quest to save their world.
(I want to bang out a first draft of the entire novel on the thousand-words-a-day plan before I polish (and post) the first two chapters, while (partly to motivate myself, and partly to come down off the inCREDible buzz one gets from making up and banging out a thousand words a day) posting occasional synopses.)
Thus: With 4,000 of an estimated 50-70,000 words in the bag, our heroes have reached the end of the first chapter, wherein we are briefly introduced to the world of Oasine and its inhabitants. The planet is one big desert from pole to pole, orbiting a big red star; life evolved late in its history, and only around scattered oases of various sizes. Some are connected by caravans, but in the oasis of Fint one man wants to prove they’re also connected by water.
Twiz Beelan and his best friend Ij have talked Hapler the podgrower into growing a mobile pod big enough for two, stocked with everything needed to withstand a two-day journey to the neighboring oasis — assuming that Twiz’s theory is more than just a crazy dream. The big day arrives, the Deeper is set for its maiden voyage, when disaster strikes! and the pod sinks into watery darkness!
Apparently stranded, the three work out a desperate plan. Soon they are heading surfaceward once more — but when they break water, Fint is nowhere to be seen.
Reaction: Novels are very, very different in process from short stories. My reporter training makes short stories a natural medium — clean, concise, pointed — but something as big as a novel? With multiple characters, viewpoints, subplots, etc.? It’s really hard, as all writing is hard, only more so.
But it’s also fun. I’m using the ol’ index-cards-for-every-chapter-character-and-setting method of organizing my notes and keeping track of new ideas. (Annie Lamott’s first draft advice from “Bird by Bird” is very helpful too.) This is also entirely different from the Prosatio Silban pieces in another way: this isn’t a world I’ve been working on since 1978 in my scrap time, but something which came to me idly drawing (now worries, no spoilers): “What if there’s a world called Oasine, populated only around its separate oases but linked by the water beneath them? And what happens if somebody goes under Oasine?”
And remember; Just because I’m writing it, doesn’t necessarily mean I know what’s going to happen next. I hope you enjoy finding out as much as I do.
Wit Dealers
TERSE WORDSMITHS, ATTEND: WEIRD TALES, that neo-venerable publication whose pages were graced by the first fruits of H.P. Lovecraft and Tennessee Williams, is currently accepting submissions for One Minute Weird Tales, which they describe as “sharp little micro-stories of 20 to 150 words, presented in a quick sequence of brief one-screen chunks.” (See more at http://weirdtales.net/wordpress/contact/submission-guidelines/; AC, RS and DH, ferstehen?)
ORL History, or Where’s Mine?
LONGTIME READERS WILL PRICK THEIR pointed ears at the mention of “Obscure Research Labs.” If you’re not one of them, but especially if you are, please read on:
Back around 1989 or so, I became involved with a group billing itself as “the world’s only TRUE research organization … devoted to finding out Just What’s Going On” (see FAQ). Headed by BT Elder, whose tenure as Professor of Applied Memetics at Miskatonic University came to an abrupt and scandal-hushed end during the 1970s, Obscure Research Labs played a key role in the development of 1990s-era underground popular culture. Without ORL’s influence, Roswell would still be a noncommittal speck on the Nevada map; the Men in Black (the real ones, not their sequel-laden counterparts) would still be frightening witnesses with anonymous abandon; and the Wachowski brothers would still be stuck for an Idea.[1]
The scope of ORL’s work and accomplishments would require several volumes to explain in disambiguating detail. Suffice to say, despite the hours and working conditions I accepted the position of newsletter editor and produced seven issues of the ORL bulletin, “Far Corner.” Filled mostly with recent ORL doings, specifically in the areas of time travel and experimental mass psychology, the newsletter also featured interviews with such secretly famous celebrities as Robert Anton Wilson and Ivan Stang.
Of course, that was all before ORL’s still-unexplained disappearance c. 2002. Although I haven’t worked for them in years, I still Google them on occasion to see what they’re up to, if at all (also, they still owe me money). Thus, imagine my surprise when I discovered someone selling ORL merchandise at inflated prices! It is flattering to have produced a collectors’ item, but annoying to be cut out of the profits. At this writing, I have been unsuccessful in contacting the seller — for all I know, he or she or it may be a disgruntled ex-employee (of which ORL seemed to produce dozens, all altered in some fashion) trying to recoup his, her or its losses.
But perhaps it’s better not to know; to let, as it were, tricephalic dogs lie. After all, according to ORL’s credo and operating principle, “You never can tell…”
[1] Few are aware that “the Matrix” is the name given by Elder and his mentor, Neal Higgins, to the “glue” which binds consensual reality like the dough in raisin bread: “Among other things, The Matrix is the theoretical basis for just about everything we do here at ORL. Put simply, it’s that vast area between what you know and what you don’t; paradoxically, it’s both universal and personal. (If you could make a circle around yourself to illustrate the limits of your perception, the area inside would represent your knowledge. Outside lies your ignorance. The circle itself is the Matrix — the indeterminate state you use to account for the existence of things you can’t see but ‘know’ are there, like the person typing these words.)” — from the ORL FAQ
Talmidei Torah Considered As The Great Motorcycle Dialectic
(sans apology to and/or connection with Messrs. Jarry et Ballard)
THERE ARE THE HARLEY RIDERS. They would not dream of owning any transportation they couldn’t twiddle with or hack. Every knob, every switch, every gear is known and its connection to the whole machine is understood, monitored, adjusted. Their dreams are the smooth metal touch and smell of clean oil, with a beckoning horizon.
There are the import riders. They want a machine that’s smooth and dependable and safely takes them where they want to go. Their relationship with the mechanic is like those with the butcher, the baker, the lawyer — professional and cordial. Continue reading “Talmidei Torah Considered As The Great Motorcycle Dialectic”