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Archive for January, 2009


2009.01.27 delivering resistance – a work of flash fiction:

Considering my recently renewed drive to become a productive writer, I decided, tonight, to write this piece of flash fiction—a super-short sub-1000 word complete story. It may not be terribly original, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. Also, i'm pleased I was able to knock out almost 1000 words in one two-hour stretch. Much better than the almost 1000 words I managed over the whole of the past weekend. Lastly, as you may guess from the above, this is probably roughly first-draft quality. I had the idea last night, wrote it between 10-ish pm and 12-ish am tonight, then did a 5 minute read-through and polish pass, and posted it here. I hope you enjoy it.

delivering resistance

My Pop–that's what I call my grandpa–was a mailman. Oh, he'd retired years before I was even born, but from the time I was able to sit up on my own, I'd sit at his feet and listen to him tell stories. It didn't matter what he was saying, of course, I just loved to hear him talk. As I got older, I kept asking him to tell me the same stories. I kept sitting, and he kept talking. It was always summer when we'd visit Pop, and i remember the warm tingly sun on my back as I'd sit there and listen, or lay there, playing with my toys.

About 10 years ago is when it started. I was 14, sitting at Pop's knee, listening to his stories, and Mom came in crying. She could hardly get words out.

"It's just awful!" She'd said, a look on her face like nothing I'd ever seen, like she was stuck, like she was trying to pop her ears at the top of a mountain. That was the day our government had declared martial law in the name of a foreign power. Just like that. No warning. Entire metropolitan police forces either complied and joined up, or were massacred on the spot. 15,000 officers died within 30 minutes on the eastern seaboard alone. Of course there was chaos, but the military and ex-cops detained or executed looters, protesters, and demonstrators by the hundreds, until no one who resisted was left. Or at least, no one who resisted openly.

I think that day was the last time I felt the sun.

My dad was a scientist, apparently a somewhat important one, not that I ever paid much attention. He was hardly around, and when he was, he always had his books or his papers, and a concerned look on his face. But on that day, he yanked me up from Pop's floor, and shuffled me, Mom, Pop, and my sis into our little 4-door, and drove way out in the middle of nowhere to some kind of run-down hunting cabin. There were some men inside, and they took us to a tiny little cave, which led to a series of caves, which lead to a great big cave filled to the stalactites with whirring machines blinking and steaming in the tepid air.

That night was the first night of the resistance, though plans had been in place for decades (scientists love to anticipate problems), and for the next five or six years, we lived right there in that cave. I'm not sure where the food came from, or how any of the rest of that place worked, all I know is that I hated it. Maybe that's a little too strong. I certainly liked the IDEA of living in a cave, and I loved being able to go exploring–especially once i got to go alone–but the only books we had were science books, and the only computers we had were dedicated to their specific tasks. The moms tried to setup a classroom, but we could pretty much only study math, science, and stuff they remembered or made up. There were no video games, very little music except what we could make, and not really even any girls. Well, there were three who were infants when they got there, and two who were a bit older than me, but one died of pneumonia our second year, and the other was just too annoying to be near for long. So there we were with nothing to do but schoolwork and make-believe. But Pop was there, so when he wasn't trying to make himself useful as a guinea pig or a button pusher for the scientists, he'd sit and tell me all those old stories over and over again. Sometimes, he'd make up new ones, just to keep it interesting, but I could always tell.

One day, we got word from the resistance, nothing special really, but it was one of those days I was making an effort to show interest in my dad's work, so I asked how exactly we were getting messages back and forth between groups of people who were trying as hard as we were to stay hidden.

That was when he told me about the mailmen.

I was astonished. Pop's mailmen had been gone since before i was born, a casualty of the new global economy, the internet, and the fact that, in the end, the only things being mailed were things that nobody wanted. There were still a couple major consumer-oriented package shippers, but the day of the mailman was long over. Nobody had paid to deliver something as simple as a paper-stuffed envelope in 20 years! But dad assured me that encrypted messages were being carried back and forth from enclave to enclave every night. There was a clandestine resistance postal service.

Pop's been gone now for 4 years, and the cave was apparently raided a couple years ago leaving no survivors. But since that night when I learned of the mailmen, i have been training and moving, carrying the messages of hope and news of the resistance. I know that my Pop was proud of me, 'cause he told me as much in the last letter he would ever write. And when I set out each night, to my next destination, his stories echo in my head, and I know that I will have the strength to go on, no matter the circumstance or weather–as Pop said "in snow, in rain, in heat, or gloom of night"–but never in sunlight. No, I suppose I won't ever feel that warmth again.

- 01:55 am - PL ::
categories ::  Personal Projects - Pleased/Like - Pop Culture - Writing

 

2009.01.23 plan pour paris:

A friend just emailed me, asking for advice on places to visit in Paris. Since I love Paris so much, i might have gone overboard. I've probably mentioned most of these things in my journals from those trips, but nevertheless, I thought I might post it here, y'know since it's already written and everything…

As for Paris, the key is walking. If she's into the touristy stuff, the Arc de Triomphe is excellent to see, walking down the Champs Elysees is a must, and viewing the Eiffel Tower from La Trocadero is highly recommended. If she doesn't mind crowds and long waits in line, going up IN the Eiffel Tower is enjoyable, but I'm still not sure I'd call it worth it on a really busy day.

The Louvre is fantastic and huge if she's an art buff, but unless she's just a huge Picasso fan, I'd skip the Picasso museum (which is separate and in a different part of town). Connected to the Louvre is my favorite of the Paris gardens, the Jardin de Touillerie, which, if you stand at the far end of the courtyard of the Louvre, looking down the path out into the garden, and through the small arc in the courtyard, you can see *all the way* out the garden to the Obelisque, and up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. That is one of my favorite views of Paris. My favorite view is at the other end of the garden, in the grassy space up above the gates, looking out into the courtyard with the Obelisque and the fountain(s?). From here, you get a great view of the Eiffel Tower to the left across the Seine, and of the Obelisque and Arc de Triomphe up the Champs Elysees to the right. My favorite spot in all of Paris is that spot, if you go up the ramp (the left ramp if you're walking towards the gates at the end of the garden) you get that great view I mentioned.

My second favorite view of Paris is from Sacre Coure in Montmartre. It feels like you can see the whole city from there. (Sort of like Eiffel, but without the long wait or crushing crowds.) Also in Montmartre, a few blocks from Sacre Coure, is a square where hundreds of artists have booths setup and are working and selling things. around the square are several restaurants, so that's a great place to go after visiting Sacre Coure.

As I mentioned, just walking around is great, especially if you have a companion or two, head down some side-streets and see what you find. My last and most important bit of advice is this: learn enough french to ask simple questions. The most important thing is to be polite and respectful. You walk into a shop, you say "bonjour!" (or something more appropriate, depending on the time of day), when you leave the shop, you say "merci!" If you have to speak to a shopkeeper and don't have enough french for it, the most important phrase in your arsenal is "I cannot speak French, do you speak English?" (in French obviously). *Usually,* making that much effort is enough that they'll be polite to you as well. If they don't, they'll tell you, and you can say "merci" and either gesture enough to get your point across, or politely leave the shop.

Guide to paris streets and public transport.Finally, and especially if doing a lot of walking, the picture I attached is of the book my sister relied on during her five+ years there. Any Plan de Paris should work, I imagine, and there seem to be a few pocket-sized versions around, but this one worked very well for me.

That's not an exhaustive list, for sure, but some of the things I particularly enjoyed. Also, i recommend sitting at the outside tables at a crowded cafe, sipping an espresso, and just people-watching. But that may be just me. 😉

- 12:20 pm - PL ::
categories ::  Uncategorized

 

2009.01.15 3 rules of bourbon:

Codified by my buddy ben:

three rules of bourbon:

  1. bourbon is only served in a glass. a glass glass.
  2. only two things are mixed with bourbon, and both of them are water
  3. bourbon only goes in your mouth.

Inspired by the horrifying "How to Irrigate Your Nasal Passages."

- 03:05 pm - PL ::
categories ::  Drinking - Friends - Upset/Dislike

 

2009.01.09 concentrate:

Aside from my preternatural skills of procrastination, one of my biggest obstacles to writing is focus. Sometimes, you run across a piece of advice that speaks directly to you, and this is one of those times.

Don't research
Researching isn't writing and vice-versa. When you come to a factual matter that you could google in a matter of seconds, don't. Don't give in and look up the length of the Brooklyn Bridge, the population of Rhode Island, or the distance to the Sun. That way lies distraction — an endless click-trance that will turn your 20 minutes of composing into a half-day's idyll through the web. Instead, do what journalists do: type "TK" where your fact should go, as in "The Brooklyn bridge, all TK feet of it, sailed into the air like a kite." "TK" appears in very few English words (the one I get tripped up on is "Atkins") so a quick search through your document for "TK" will tell you whether you have any fact-checking to do afterwards. And your editor and copyeditor will recognize it if you miss it and bring it to your attention.

from a post by Cory Doctorow

I've not done much actual writing (mostly outlining and, more often, NOT outlining—see procrastination, above) but when I was attempting to write that sci-fi novel I started in 2005, I was horribly horribly derailed by researching the position of mars in the night sky, from the mountains of northern california. In my defense, it gave me dialogue i might not have otherwise had, but still… distracted! The above is great advice for countering this, which I hope I can actually put into practice.

- 04:30 pm - PL ::
categories ::  Cool Links - NaNoWriMo - Personal Projects - Pleased/Like - Writing

 

2009.01.03 windblown review:

Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947-1954 Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947-1954 by Jack Kerouac


My review


rating: 4 of 5 stars
It was always somewhat unclear, in the works dealing with Kerouac's life and methods, just how much he was beholden to classic literature and literary theory. The most famous story, of course, was always about the benzedrine, caffeine, and nicotine fueled three-day writing binge that resulted in "On The Road." And Kerouac himself, with his later works, and his articles and essays about writing, became a vocal proponent of "automatic" or "stream of consciousness" writing, further muddying the waters of his influences. In reading many of the biographies about Kerouac, we can get something of a feel for his abiding love of literature, and his almost reverent regard for certain writers who most inspired him.

In this book, a collection of journals–in whole and in part–taking the form of a mixture of working writing journals, and personal diary-type entries, his interests and desires are made clear.

Especially in regards to his first novel, Kerouac is keenly interested in creating a work of import and gravity, to be held among the works of his admired influences. He discusses the great efforts to maintain his momentum, and to edit and re-arrange his work. His fluctuating emotional connection to his own work sees him moving from the depths of despair that he will never be able to finish to his satisfaction, to the height of narcissistic belief that it will be a greater work than anything else in his time. This journal enlightens us to his struggles just to *be* a writer–which is a far cry from that image of Kerouac as the mindless typist cranking out words in a drug-fueled haze.

Later entries shine a light on his most famous novel "On The Road" that it rarely receives–showing "On The Road" as a careful work, which goes through several conceptual changes, not to mention numerous drafts.

Much of these journals are also notes from the journeys that actually appear in the finished novel, so we are able to see, in a way, how Kerouac captures his raw material.

These journals are a fantastic opportunity for Kerouac fans to get an internal glipmse at the reality behind the fiction we've come to love. For those who aren't fans, but who are interested in the act and art of writing–and of *creating*, in general–it is a window on the extraordinary struggles of a man attempting to leave his mark.

View all my reviews.

- 07:33 pm - PL ::
categories ::  Cool Links - Pleased/Like - Writing

 


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