Dead in the Water

Ha. Good metaphor for a blog invoking the name of the Great Old One himself.  After November's brief revival things again got bogged down as is wont with my job and the posting dried up pretty darned good.  So I made a New Years resolution (yeah, that's it!) to start writing again sometime before the end of January.  Sound like a good enough rationalization to wait this long to post anything?  Yeah, well piss on you if you don't agree.

In all honesty I have been meaning to start writing / blogging again.  The big question is whether or not to start doing so HERE.  The place has been mostly abandoned because, for whatever reason, it is not meeting any needs or desires of mine.

But I have a need/desire to write, and here is where I can write.  It's my own place, and I've had it for some time.  It has lacked direction in the past - really never had any - but it can still be whatever I want.  Or can it?

I remember back in November that Crummy was reminiscing about his own place and how it "violates all the rules" about "successful blogging" as far as theme, content, length of posts, blah blah blah.  Like I've stated about this place, he admits that he doesn't really have anything he writes about.  It's mostly blogging about himself - an exercise in narcissism.  I don't think Crum would take that the wrong way (please don't). All personal blogging is an exercise in narcissism, this is no exception.

The thing that he has - and the other good ones that I read or have read (Randall, Beach Bum, okjimm, splotchy, my cousin the rabbit wrangler, nunly, and even recently my old college friend wombat) all have one thing going for them - they have a certain context, some sort of intellectual or cognitive rug that really ties their rooms together.  I'm not sure I have that rug...or maybe some Chinaman came in and pissed on it.

I do know one thing - if I want to get that rug, or clean the piss off of it, I simply need to write, and do so regularly.  For now this place will have to do.

I'm just not sure this is what I want my writing to be, other than something I'm happy with.  I've thought about different ways I could go.  I'm guessing the thing to do is write them down - make a list of "Shit I'd Like To Write About" and figure out how/when/where I will.

But in the meantime I just need to write.   I can feel my brain atrophying.

So I'll call this a start.

Well shit what do I do now?

 Facebook Friend: "I've decided to do NaNoWriMo this year. 50,000 words in 30 days, blahblahblah..."

Me: "I thought of doing that once and writing a story that's sort of a combination of Patrick O'Brian and H.P. Lovecraft. I'd call it Master and Cthulhu."

Friend: "You must! I mean, come on: O'Brian even has a book call The Yellow Admiral which is already *this* close to the Admiral in Yellow. Ocean voyages...sunken cities of madness...this stuff writes itself! You owe it to the world, man! C'mon..do it! All the cool kids are!"

So now I'm thinking about it.   Even slinging bullshit, can I get 50,000 words out in a month?  I must admit, it's very tempting.

And even along the lines of what I discussed above.  I wrote a short piece about 18 months ago that was accepted by a Lovecraft-inspired e-zine.  I even noticed that Crum just found it a couple of weeks back.  I figure a fictitious early 19th Century sea voyage of a ship named Innsmouth from the east coast to the Pacific Northwest - through the mysterious waters of the South Pacific, home to R'lyeh, and the big smelly mud-flat of Lovecraft's Dagon, with some native-bred-to-Deep-One intrigue (linking the Pacific-origin of the "Innsmouth Look" to the ship and the story), apeshit madness and mutiny, and throw in the discovery of some bizzare, artifact-driven combination of celestial navigation and ship propulsion that brings Yog-Sothoth into play and I could probably cobble together 50,000 words of crud under the "No plot, no problem!" mantra.

I must admit, it is tempting...since I'm living 400+ miles from my family and have no friends I have several hours a night.  It would put that 18 month-old blog with just two posts on it to some use.  I'm about 95% sold on the idea of it.

Splotchy's Story Virus Is Back...

It took me a few days to get over the virus the last time it got me. I was infected with this one about a month ago, decided to do it and promptly went on bloggy burnout. But as I said before, I would complete it. Think of it like H1N1. It showed up, it may go away, but there's a good chance it will flare up later.

Da' rules: Splotchy is patient zero. In his own words...

Here's what I would like to do. I want to create a story that branches out in a variety of different, unexpected ways. I don't know how realistic it is, but that's what I'm aiming for. Hopefully, at least one thread of the story can make a decent number of hops before it dies out.

If you are one of the carriers of this story virus (i.e. you have been tagged and choose to contribute to it), you will have one responsibility, in addition to contributing your own piece of the story: you will have to tag at least one person that continues your story thread. So, say you tag five people. If four people decide to not participate, it's okay, as long as the fifth one does. And if all five participate, well that's five interesting threads the story spins off into.

Not a requirement, but something your readers would appreciate: to help people trace your own particular thread of the narrative, it will be helpful if you include links to the chapters preceding yours.

Here is the first chapter:

The ground crunched beneath my feet. Besides my noisy footsteps, I heard only the sound of the gentle crackling fire behind me. Its faint orange light lazily revealed my immediate surroundings. Beyond the glow, there was total blackness. I whistled. I took the small rock I had been carrying and whipped it away from me, expecting a thud, crack or plop -- but a soft yelp of a cry answered. (by Splotchy)

Ice shot straight up my spine as my gut contracted in a terrified knot...he'd followed me. He always knew where to find his master. I heard him shuffling closer and knew what I had to do. Tears welled up in my eyes and my throat tightened as I remembered all the nights camping at this very spot, the hundreds of slobbery tennis balls and bags of Kibbles 'n Bits that had defined our lives together. I braced the butt of my M4 assault rifle into my shoulder and whispered, "Goodbye, old boy."

The stiffly-shambling form materializing at the edge of the darkness around the fire pit immediately drew my aim up, my finger squeezing as the sight swung to its cranium. A banana-clip-worth of brass arced its way to the base of the fire as a foot-long muzzle flash and the ripping sound of automatic fire broke the artificial silence of the night.

Making a sound like a baseball bat clobbering a rotten cantaloupe, the shadowy head disintegrated as the once walking corpse fell to its knees and slumped down into the light. Pongo - or, rather, Pongo's corpse - crawled into the light, his rotting innards exposed behind a the exposed right half of his ribcage. Half the flesh had been avulsed from his face, giving him a gruesome visage as his tongue hung over his mandible. He sniffed the stump of the rotting, headless thing before he dragged his broken, undead doggy body my way, his head lolling from side to side. Instinctively, I released the empty clip, shoved another one home and drew a bead. Pongo stopped and sat at my feet. Bowing his back and lifting his leg, and began licking a place I could never reach on my own body for about 5 seconds before the now cleaned organs fell off and settled a few inches from his hind leg.

Pongo looked up at me and I could read the eyes on his zombified face. They said, "My nuts! Can you believe this shit?" I lowered the weapon. I'd forgotten to chamber a round anyway. I knelt down and hesitatingly reached out to pet what had been Pongo. He offered no resistance. Of all the zombie apocalypses I'd been through since moving here, this one was by far the weirdest.

Something on the creature I'd just shot caught my eye. It had something odd-looking tucked underneath its arm. I looked from the shadowy object over to my truck and slowly back down to Pongo as he dejectedly contemplated his former genitals. I heard the dragging feet of several undead, man-eating motherfuckers approaching the fire...

Now, should I tag someone? Who the fuck knows if anyone's even reading this thing anymore...but I'm feeling all "follow the rules"-y tonight, so here goes:

Randal, because in the month since I first contracted it, it mutated enough that you are no longer immune.

Beach Bum, because you write well.

Briwei, because if you ever start reading your friends' blogs again you might see this. And I know you like to write.

Nunly, because you tagged me with a meme that I'll get to soon, and I don't want you to feel left out.

Anyone else who sees this and wants to give it a shot, leave a comment and consider yourself tagged.

I've Tweeted My Meat...

I've seen (that is, been followed by) people who are tweeting serial stories...I usually block them as soon as I read their twitter homepages because the stories are boring as shit and they seem to picture themselves as far more artistic than they actually are.

This one, however is a bit different:

“Where is it?” She grasps, fingers scraping. She yanks. It peels. A gallbladder. “Damn.” She reaches back in. _"Will you quit wiggling?"_

It's a sample tweet from one of the editors at Tweet the Meat, a Twitter-based horror e-zine that seeks to publish complete, 140-character-or-fewer horror snippets from its readers. And they even pay a buck per submission via PayPal.

Anyway, the concept sounded interesting enough so I submitted a tweet on Sunday, and it got accepted. As they have first digital rights to it, I can't reproduce it here for you, but I'll let you know when it's up. I don't want to sound like it was a monumentally difficult thing, but I did think about it for at least a couple of days. Trying to complete an action and create enough of an atmosphere to capture the imagination of a reader in 140 characters, while being grammatically correct, was an interesting task. Definitely fun.

I have a PayPal account, but I don't need the dollar. In this case, they will make a donation via PayPal to the charity of your choice in your name. I think that is an excellent idea. I believe I will choose Project Valour-IT, who help "provide voice-controlled/adaptive laptop computers and other technology to support Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries." They can use the dollar way more than I can, and maybe I'll try and do a submission a week to get them more money...

It'll be interesting when they start posting reader-submitted stuff, to see the quality that made the cut. It's definitely more interesting than some wannabe wovelist trying to feed you mediocrity 140 characters at a time.

On other publishing news, my "Monster Byte" was accepted by the Innsmouth Free Press, though it has not been published yet. I hope to see it soon, but I also had planned to make a couple more related ones to round the story out...I should get cracking. I had also wanted to write a piece of short fiction for them; something of a Cthulhu meets Patrick O'Brian in the Oregon territory circa 1820. I should get cracking on that, too. I was also going to set up an invitation only blog to display works in progress for comment. I should get cracking on that, too.

Lovecraft, Age 9

Old, untitled books should not be casually opened, for you never know what horrors you will find inside. Especially if you're a parent stumbling upon your kids' writing journal.


Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl ch'ken fhtagn...

It's true. Why else would the Great Old One open a restaurant? I'd be pretty fekhin' hungry sleeping all those aeons.

Junior fancies himself a Lovecraft...

Great...Another One...

Crummy talked about having more than one blog being like loving more than one woman. It sounds great but in the end, both end up being neglected. True, unless you use enough Viagra. But be careful, you might end up like this guy.

Or, worse yet, this guy:


And well, while don't plan on popping pills or "not having sex" with delusional interns (but the Secretary of State? Well...maybe for the notoriety) I do plan on spreading myself more thinly through the blogosphere by starting YET ANOTHER BLOG.


I've decided to try and write something (or things, if it ends up working out) for the Innsmouth Free Press website to which I alluded earlier this week...possibly even a piece or two (I have two ideas) of fiction for it; so this blog will be the place where I throw down story sections, go over ideas, and ask those whose opinions I value to offer criticism, if they feel so inclined.

The blog is called "Appreciable Mental Strain" and is lifted from the first sentence of Dagon, one of the first short stories Lovecraft wrote.

Invitations will be forwarded soon...by carrier nightgaunt...to those of you whose emails I have.



If you'd like to follow and I don't have your email please drop me a line at cthulhusfamilyrestaurant- at- gmail- dot- com. (broken up to protect from spambots...thanks for the tip, Crum!)

The 25 Writers Meme Part I

Like Dawn at Weldable Cookies who tagged me with this, I don't always take to memes right away, if at all. I've been doing quite a few lately though, so what's the harm in one more? Pretty simple - list 25 authors that have influenced my writing. I'm not sure I have that many influences lately outside The Naval Institute Guide to Writing. But I tried. I don't know if I see all of the below in my writing, but they all have/had a profound effect on me. Like my last "double digit" meme that required thinking, I'm publishing this one piece meal. Half today, half later...

1. H. P. Lovecraft - Duh. Nobody before or since has mastered the combining of science fiction and horror. I think the mythos he created is not only vastly under-appreciated, but also overdone in the silliest way. And many of us who appreciate it also overdo it...we all have. Hey, lots of people like to say "Cthulhu" and snicker like Beavis and Butthead.

2. J. R. R. Tolkein - The detail with which he created Middle Earth, combined with the eloquent manner in which he drew me into it. Very, very few could ever do that. He spoiled every other fantasy author for me. I could not get past 50 pages of any of them after I'd finished LoTR.

3. Patrick O'Brian - What Lovecraft and Tolkien are to fantasy and horror, O'Brian is to historical fiction, especially the great age of fighting sail. Forget the movie - though it is a reasonable representation of life in Nelson's navy - Master and Commander the book is such a phenomenal piece of literature. Instead of creating a world, he meticulously re-creates the world of two centuries ago, and goes to extreme lengths to preserve the actual history itself - if he puts Captain Aubrey in a particular event, he does so only when there is a logical avenue (i.e. he doesn't replace a Lieutenant with a Captain) and does not change the outcome (if the good guys lose, they lose); I've had arguments with friends who favor C. S. Forester's Hornblower to "Lucky Jack" Aubrey, but I prefer the historic accuracy and detail over the swashbuckling.

4. Michael Moorcock - Okay, I lied when I said Tolkien spoiled other fantasy authors for me. The Elric Saga showed me that fantasy can have a gritty, gut-wrenching anti-hero and still be damned good reading. It also turned me on to The Chronicles of Corum, a tale rife with mutilation, loss, slaughter and revenge. Oh yeah - and if you ever listen to Veteran of the Psychic Wars by Blue Oyster Cult, you have Moorcock to thank.

5. Denny Aaberg - If you aren't into surfing, surf history and the Malibu scene, you have no idea who he is. Denny Aaberg wrote two short stories about a 60's-era hot-dog surfer named "No Pants Mance" that are just brilliant. They embody the spirit of surfing to me. Maybe you've seen the movie Big Wednesday, directed by John Milius of all people. It's based upon the characters from these stories.

6. Stephen King - The second horror author on my literary trek to H. P. Lovecraft. He also cites Howie as a big time influence. His meshing of visceral, soul-shaking horror had a huge impact on me. His greatest work was done in a time when I was growing up and in the phase where I was just beginning the transition from boyhood to manhood. Everything takes on a deeper meaning then. Oh, and he's a Red Sox fan. So there.

7. Edgar Allen Poe - As with many people, he was my first literary introduction into the macabre and the dark side of human nature. The Telltale Heart and The Cask of Amantillado being early favorites. Though I think the latter would have been better if the main character had said "biatch" after "Nemo me impune lacessit" and "motherfucker" after "In pace requiascat!"

8. Earnest Hemingway - The courage and fortitude of the "Hemingway Hero" through pain and suffering, triumphing only to lose everything - as demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea and A Farewell to Arms - love it or hate it, it's powerful.

9. George Orwell - Yeah the books about piggies and the government running everything are really great, but I also admire his persistent quest for clear, and concise written communication that relies on the active voice. If more people would take this on board, the average yokel's writing wouldn't be so doubleplusungood.

10. Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter. I swore I'd shoot myself before I read this again or allowed myself to write anything that even vaguely resembled it.

11. William Gibson - Pioneer of the cyberpunk and steampunk fiction genres. Think the movie Johnny Mnemonic sucks? It does. But the short story is pretty awesome.

12. Craig Stecyk - journalist who in the 1970's first exposed the whole "Dogtown" skate scene in Venice CA in a series of articles for Skateboarder. Written many times about the surfing / skateboarding scene and lifestyle, always with an incredible edge. From in your face, "Fuck you, we rule and we know it" reporting to breathtaking "man vs. ocean" short stories. Great stuff.

Uh, okay, that's half...roughly. And I'm actually going to tag people this time because I think this is a cool meme and a good mental exercise. So I'll tag half the people now and half later.

Randal at L'ennui melodieux - it's about time I tagged you back, and you're a damned good writer, so I wanna' know!

Dr. Momentum at Aces Full of Links - you may have read more than any person I know. I hope you take this one up.

Viral Story

Okay, so this is what I'm taking part in, and here is the previous chapter (both chapters, actually). After the whole "serious scribbler" thingy, I've tried to shy away, but this looks like fun. Here endeth the intro...

----

I could feel my heart beating in what felt like my throat, and I began to sweat again, reflexively wiping it up before it reached my electric eye. The eye that seemed like such a good idea after that horrifically ricocheting Yachtzee die two years ago claimed the one I was born with. The eye that got me into this sanity-draining predicament in the first place.

It was just this morning that I was presenting my proposal for my doctorate in theoretical physics, explaining how the inadvertent discovery of zero-mass gravitons at the Large Hadron Collider makes possible the existence of black holes that are mere "portals" - rips in space-time without gravitic influence - to other dimensions, presenting theory and a proposed re-engineering of my electric eye that could detect the EM spectrum emissions surrounding these portals and anything from the "other side" that could exist here. The reaction of the board members was less than encouraging. They jumped upon each other's attacks, like sharks on a bloody chum-bucket. "This is so underdeveloped, seriously, how much time did you take on this?" ... "We don't deal in such pseudo-science" ... "You do realize this is a secretarial junior college, don't you?" All except for the leering silence on the fourth board member. A mister "A. L. Hazred", who simply watched as I dejectedly gathered my work and walked out.

Two hours later Mr. Hazred called. He told me he found my proposal interesting, he would love to see my eye developed to its full potential, and he had pulled some strings and got me a seat on the graduate staff of Miskatonic University in the Department of Theoretical Paranormal Studies. I told him I wasn't interested, I'd just burned that piece of shit proposal and what the hell is Miskatonic University anyway. He said there was a more than generous research grant waiting for me at the university, as well as a ticket on the 1:15 bus to Arkham at the bus station. I have until tonight to get to the university, someone at Arkham will show me to the university. If I was not on the bus I would not hear from him again, but it would be such a shame and waste my talent if a shoggoth were to ooze out of the overhead ventilation of my apartment and decapitate me. It was just about then I heard a faint piping coming from the crapper. I bolted. No coat, and only the aforementioned wallet, nine-volt, pen and paper that I keep slung across my ass in my trusty fanny pack during every waking minute of the day. I made the bus with minutes to spare, without even time to grab a bottle of water after my hectic run across cold, slushy streets. My mouth and throat were parched. I needed a drink. I wondered if I might get any relief from the foetid, eldritch goo that was seeping out of the box. I fought off the thought. But I needed to drink. I stared again at the puddle. Grants. Waiting for me. How much? Who? Where? Arkham is not a nice place, I'm told. What am I doing here? What am I doing here?

"What am I doing here?!?!" I found myself croaking, almost too loud, as I snapped out of my my skyline-induced trance and instinctively looked at the closest face - it's face as fortune would have it. It emanated a brief sound that sounded somewhere between a cough, a grunt and a wet fart.

"Ooourglphghprblbl ... yew ookay, sonny?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, thanks," I toed the box again as I wiped his cheap-whiskey-and-rotting-marine-life-smelling spittle from my lower lip, "hey, how easy is it to get to the university from the terminal?"

It looked me up and down for a brief moment, it's neutral facial expression broken only by a tentacled appendage pushing a Riccola cough drop past his slavering, putrescent lips. It sighed briefly, turned, and lurched its way back to the front of the bus. I felt waves of exhaustion coming up through my body and into my head, along with a frantic, panicky nausea. My hearing grew fuzzy, the gross, ululating murmurings of the other passengers fading and white noise, ever so faint at first, growing, becoming louder, as my skin seemed to vibrate into concentrated gooseflesh, a dark tunnel enclosing my view of the bus as my vision failed me and my oxygen-depleted brain, leaving me only vaguely aware of a dim glow in my right eye socket as my eye shut down.

I sat bolt upright in a freezing cold bus, my billowing breath - the first thing I noticed in the dim light coming in from the bus lot - wrapping itself over the top of the seat in front of me, along the windows, and into the darkness of a now empty bus. How long had I been out? Where had It, the miniskirted maniac, and the rest of the degenerate, vaguely fishy-looking occupants gone? I felt my pockets again. The wallet and battery were still there.

As I rose up, I kicked something solid and heard it skid across the floor. It was the tentacled spawn, now out of its box, the watery ooze now freezing into a slushy ice in the cold. Looking quickly through the seats I found a small plastic shopping bag left by another passenger. Dumping out the contents I saw a half-eaten granola bar and a pair of nail clippers encrusted with some dark, fibrous material. I pocketed the clippers, maneuvered the bag over the half-frozen thing, and slunk out of the bus into the abandoned terminal - cold, exhausted, and unsure of where exactly I was or where I was going.

------------
Here endeth the chapter.

Hmmm...a few creative writers - Briwei, DrMomentum, Dawn. (I know at least one of you doesn't care for these, so no biggie...you can kick me next time I see you if you want.)

Randall, thanks for this.

To NoWri or BloPo?

That is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to publish 30 meaningless snippets or spew mounds of daily drivel and by spewing, end writer's block.

..I have two weeks to decide (one if I want to do any planning at all!) whether I want to participate in NaNoWriMo or NaBloPoMo.

Both are fascinating. On one hand, NaBloPoMo can drive me to plan this thing - set aside days for posting about specific topics, and join neat sub-groups like "Bloggers who wish they had syphilis". On the other hand, the thought of latching onto an idea/plot that excites me, sitting down and writing and not knowing (or caring) where it takes me seems pretty cool, too. I really like the whole "quantity not quality" philosophy there...it's very "American consumer"-ish.

I think both can get me where I want to be; able to more quickly translate thought to keyboard, without second guessing myself out of fear of not getting every little eensie-weensie detail right. My wife is seriously looking at NaNoWriMo; going it alongside her may help us both out. Who knows?

So...the challenge of 6000 words a day, or the challenge of actually thinking about where I want to go with this and making it quasi-meaningful? Aye, there's the rub!

He'd Have Scored Higher on the SAT...

Partial credit is alive and well in England, it seems.

A pupil who wrote f**k off on his GCSE English paper was given two marks out of 27.

Even though the task was to "describe the room you are sitting in", simple correct spelling and conveying a thought counted for something...

If it had had an exclamation mark it would got a little bit more because it would have been showing a little of skill.

Imagine if he had added "you bloody plonker" at the end...

Apparently, the largest exam board that controls the testing in England doesn't acknowledge correct spelling and syntax when it comes to obscenity. Let's face it - someone who writes "Fuck off" as an answer to an essay question is going nowhere fast, and probably deserves zero points; but to sanction or disregard obscenity in a graded writing as a matter of policy - well, aren't you limiting thought/expression?

Full story here.