Picking Transparents

I'm not here much anymore

2006-05-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

Due to time constraints of my new job, I seldom have a chance to be here and at my primary blog.

So, if you came here looking for Dan, you'll find him at: http://larsneuffeldt.livejournal.com/

Thank you,

Lars Neuffeldt
aka
Carl Holiday
aka
Dan

The Last of the Quince Jelly

2006-01-30T04:49:00.000-08:00

They never got along. It was as simple as that. The boy knew the old man didn’t like him because he was from the city, he was scared of his own shadow, and he’d refuse to do some of the things the old man asked of him. They were never big things, just little tasks that any normal, likeable grandson would be willing to do if asked.

Yet, they tolerated each other. Years later the boy would admit to admiring the old man for his unending doggedness at beating life at its own game, never failing to push the envelope to test his ability to get things done his way.

Their last time together as grandfather and grandson before the boy took the last step into manhood was a disaster for both, and more so for the boy who was after all still a boy who thought as a boy, saw himself as a boy.

The day dawned clear and brisk, the previous night’s snow still encasing the power lines along the road. The old man didn’t work any more, having given up the farm’s responsibilities to his son, but he still tried to be involved in everything, needing to keep his mind active, his body fit. The task was meaningless, actually. Something thought up on a whim, contrived over a bowl of oatmeal.

“I’ll need you to help me today,” the old man said tightening the laces on his boots.

“You know I’m on vacation,” the boy said buttering the last piece of toast.

“I have some lumber down in the barn that needs to be moved to the shed.”

The boy wasn’t listening. He was too busy trying to decide if strawberry jam would be better than quince jelly. Strawberry jam could be bought anywhere. Quince jelly only came from his grandmother’s kitchen. He took more than he needed spreading the clear, golden jelly to the crisp crust of the bread.

Over the mountains

2006-01-25T16:58:00.000-08:00

I remember a little boy who lived in a big city over on the other side of the mountains. He was a timid thing who rarely got along with his cousins who lived on the other side of the mountains. He was, also, and probably more important than anything else, an only child. Without brothers or sisters, he had few skills on dealing with other children, especially those who were older and enjoyed to no end pestering the little boy with crawly bugs because he was deathly afraid of anything that might turn out to be a spider.

The little boy came out of the city with his parents when they journeyed over the mountains to see their families. Of course, his parents had brothers and sisters, lots of brothers and sisters who had lots of children, so many children that the only child from the city was always very, very alone whenever his parents took him over the mountains.

Being an only child, the little boy played best when he played with no one but himself. So he was mostly unhappy when he saw his mother packing clothes into his little suitcase that was only used when they journeyed over the mountains.

"You like your cousins and you certainly don't see them enough," the little boy's mother always said whenever he protested about leaving his bedroom where most of his toys were kept.

His toys never, ever went over the mountains so he could have something familiar to play with. There were toys at the house where his mother grew up. The family who lived there, his mother's parents and two younger sisters, always seemed sorry he couldn't bring something to play with, but his mother never, ever allowed one of his toys to accompany them over the mountains.

"You'll lose it, or one of your cousins will take it from you and you'll never, ever see it again," the little boy's mother always said whenever he asked her to pack a small car, ball, or coloring book.

So, the little boy would sit on the little chair in his bedroom and look at all his toys in the box his father built out of old lumber. He kept his toys neatly arranged so that nothing was ever on top of something else. He imagined sneaking something into his father's car, something small that couldn't be noticed, but all his toys were too big for something that sneaky.

"You didn't bring a toy with you, did you?" the little boy's mother always asked as she put him in the backseat with his suitcase, pillow, and a quilt because it always took a long time to go over the mountains and the little boy always fell asleep.

Been away too long

2006-01-18T05:47:00.000-08:00

Have you ever strayed away from life's path and purposefully delayed going back. I felt like that for the past couple months.

I've embarked on a new path, leading I know not where. This blog, meant for the fictional side of myself, has suffered in the process and I've delayed getting back, plus I've delayed getting back to the original purpose of this blog.

. . .

They've been friends since high school, since the day Damon first offered to suck Bobby's dick. They aren't friends because Damon is gay and Bobby isn't. Their friendship is worth more than the sexual relief Damon offers and Bobby keeps refusing. After all, a friendship that lasts over forty years and two marriages on Bobby's part has to be worth more than just sex.

Damon never considered himself to be gay, even after moving to New York for three years instead of going to college like his mother and Bobby kept bugging him to do. Later, after he returned, after he knew what being different was all about, even then he thought some day, some where, he would meet a girl, a woman, who would allow him to give his mother grandchildren. All his other brothers, and sisters, had done that. After all, was fucking a girl all that different from doing it with a guy?

He was average, for the baby of a family. The last of nine children Doris and Reg Palsi brought into the world. Unlike all his brothers, Damon didn't excel at any sport, but just got by, doing enough to get a passing grade in Physical Education. As far as he was concerned, the only benefit from going to high school was meeting Bobby, everything else was simply fluff that would blow away in the slightest breeze.

When asked, even at an early age when every boy wanted to be a fireman, policeman, or cowboy, Damon would simply respond, "I don't know, maybe, an artist." Except, even becoming an artist didn't raise Damon's aspirations enough to devote the time necessary to become anything more than an average artist of untested abilities. He floated through life. Even in New York where he thought he'd find the talent necessary to overcome his mediocre life, all he found was other people who wanted to use him for their own needs, desires, or, most often as not, momentary sexual gratification.

Now, after spending a life far from the edge, never attempting to extend his abilities, Damon lived in the beat up Corolla Bobby bought for him three years ago.

The Gods Gather to Celebrate a Cleansing

2005-11-30T09:17:00.000-08:00

Excerpts from History of the Argottean Federation

Chapter 4, continued

13 Nibs 435—Palace of War, Hurlshome. On a snowy outcrop of methane ice, forty foot high, yellow granite, crenellated walls enclose War’s palace on the home planet of the Argottean Gods. Today War and his select minions, Courage, Bravery, and Honor, are hosting a party to celebrate their imminent departure to Belenda for a possible civil war.

The Belendans, recently freed from ’xrsc control, are divided along a definite educational line. The common workers, i.e., bricklayers, sweepers, carpenters, technical module exterior cleaners, steelworkers, privy muckers, etc., and their supporters are gathering under the Star Base Workers Party (SBWP) banner held by shop steward Loora Kird. The opposing forces, represented by inventory control specialists, file clerks, assistant systems engineers, document control specialists, general programmers, and other graduates of Belenda’s Academies of Sufficient Education, are gathering under the Belendan Programmers Union (BPU) banner held by Beezös Snirl.

“I think we’re in for a real blood and guts, kill ’em and wound ’em, kind of war,” Honor said. “When you look at the blue collars under Loora Kird holding hammers, pruning saws, toilet plungers, and many other implements you can’t but hope they will prevail over the pink and white collars supporting Beezös Snirl. I mean what are they [the pink and white collars] going to do, staple their opponents to the bulletin board?”

“I know if we can get in there early enough, we just may have a chance to stir these humans into a good tizzy so that they’ll go out and actually carve somebody into a pile of bloody mush,” Bravery said.

War, for his part, sat on his horse and quietly smoked his corncob pipe, refusing all questions and directing reporters to his assistants.

“He was really bummed over those Argotteans and their silly dance thingie,” Courage said. “You know, I think he would have called in Pestilence just to show them the error of their ways, but, you know, they haven’t had a decent word to each other since that awful spitball incident three eternities ago.”

Is Belenda Finally Free?

2005-10-09T11:54:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from History of the Argottean Federation

Chapter 4, continued

29 Voomb 435—Nits Circle, Blooply Valley, Belenda. Officials of the newly organized Belendan Programmers Union (BPU) announced that yesterday, Beezös Snirl, average second class graduate of the Blooply Valley Belenda Academy of Sufficient Education with a third class certificate in Inventory Control, and, now, an 3.3 degree inventory programming specialist at Steel Foundry Z.38.92, used his innate systems abilities to access ’xrsc system code and effectively isolate Belenda from ’xrsc central control.

Further, BPU announced they were assuming control of Belenda since only they had the key to the Nits on Parade Spaceport entry gate lockout control program.

There are reports coming out of other areas on Belenda that resistance to BPU is mainly centering around Nits on Parade Spaceport where members of the Star Base Workers Party (SBWP) say that their shop steward, Loora Kird, is encouraging common workers to rise up against those educated fools in BPU.

Requests for interviews from ’xrsc central control on went unanswered.

A SOHO official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Argottean officials are analyzing the situation on Belenda, but without input from the ’xrsc there is very little that can be accomplished. It was reported that attempts to contact the latest group of vacationers visiting Belenda’s beach resorts have been returned without answer. Officials at Argotte Tourist Board referred all questions to ’xrsc central control.

The Results Are In: Argotte Loses Civil War

2005-10-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from History of the Argottean Federation

Chapter 4, continued

19 Nirk 356—Solar Orbiting Habitat 3, Argotte system. After twenty-six years of a tightly controlled and strictly administered Civil War, Bubi pnu’Boo’psi’mi, Grand Hurlsboyo of Argotte, prostrates his naked body before Snotto pna’Muph’kappa’sooli, Grand Burpidottir of SOHO, accepting defeat of the Home combatant action groups to the ultimately superior SOHO combatant action groups.

Bubi, along with members of the current Argottean dynasty out to the eighth heir and their spouses, and children, where appropriate, waited patiently while corresponding members of the pna’Muph dynasty noisily sharpened their cattle prods.

Vri czi’Bri’phili’tuun, Third Degree Novitiate, Excretory Disciples of Hurl, went to each victim, accepted their confession of faithful sins, and placed a dollop of Hurl’s holy snot onto heads, centered in a small shaved area where the cattle prod will be driven. Each member of the pna’Muph dynasty will be assisted in the execution by a member of the Church of Blüd to ensure a bloody, yet nearly painless death to Blüd’s greater glory.

Since this was the first mass killing of a royal dynasty in nearly 750 years, bishops of the Execretory Disciples of Hurl, senior bureaucrats from SOHO and Argotte, and Viki xy’Thu’buzi’bi, Senior Dean of Bureaucratic Theory and Practice, Nits Rock University, vociferously debated the various rules, exceptions, exemptions, revisions, and interpretations related to today’s auspicious event.

Snotto was brought before the assemble advisors numerous times to state and restate her awareness that her dynasty was now assuming control over all of Argotte, not just her familiar territory on the Solar Orbiting Habitats. The advisors kept insisting that Snotto needed to understand what this meant. After the fifth recall, Snotto finally appeared to understand what was being thrust upon her shoulders of purest alabaster. On the seventh recall, Snotto broke down into an ecstatic display of Hurl’s holy affirmation of the day’s event and peed abundantly on the green linoleum floor. Lesser members of the assemblage had to be visibly held back, less they offend the Grand Burpidottir by lapping up her personal offering to Hurl.

Upon returning to the execution arena, Snotto and the advisory team took their places before Blüd’s victims. Vri czi’Bri’phili’tuun said a short prayer acknowledging those members of the pnu’Boo dynasty who made their own offerings to Hurl. Then the members of the pna’Muph dynasty, along with their Church of Blüd assistants, took their places at the head of each member of the pnu’Boo dynasty. When Vri screamed Hurl’s holy words of disgust towards Blüd, the cattle prods were shoved with sufficient force to send the victims to Hurlshome where they will peacefully live with the gods for eternity.

Survival at sea

2005-09-25T08:40:00.000-07:00

When I first came across the idea of reading The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, I was intrigued by the title, thinking, before seeing the cover, it had something to do with π. Then I read a brief description of it and was immediately reminded of an earlier reading of The Island of the Day Before, by Umberto Eco, which also uses surviving at sea after a shipwreck as the foundation for explorations into the further reaches of human existence. Interestingly, there are a few threads that seem to connect Pi and Roberto, but not enough to draw any parallels between the two books.

My decision to buy The Life of Pi was also influenced by its winning the Man Booker Prize, which is, to me, reason enough to read a novel, having enjoyed many of the previous winners, plus later works of the authors.

According to some reviewers, The Life of Pi is about the basic meanings of life and belief in the Divine, which was another reason for me to read the book, as I have explored the reaches of human belief in my own philosophical pursuits. This is a flimsy reason to buy the book if only because purposeful fictional explorations of human relationships with religious beliefs tend to hold little substance, giving little sustenance to the mind.

And, so, I jumped in and ran with Pi and Richard Parker as far as I could. Knowing Pi survives to tell the tale to the person “writing” the story seemed at first to have little bearing on whether I would continue or stop. The more I read, the further I went into the amazing tale of survival at sea in a lifeboat, and the more reminders that Pi survived, seemed to build sort of a barrier to my achieving The End.

Honestly, I really tried to read further than where I stopped. I even skipped ahead to read from the end backwards, but nothing seemed to get past whatever was holding me back. Maybe the lack of trepidation in the narrative injured my ability to digest the material. The need for suspense in any novel drives the tale forward demanding the reader turn the page to find out what comes next.

Mostly, though, I think my problem with The Life of Pi is the constant reminders throughout the book that Pi survives to tell his tale. No matter how horrendous the physical suffering due to starvation, dehydration, and fear of being eaten by the tiger in the boat or the sharks prowling in the water, the author keeps reminding the reader that everything turns out okay, that the reader shouldn’t worry about anything, because Pi gets to wherever the boat is going and that whatever Pi’s mind devises to survive works. I really didn't care to find out because in the end Pi comes across as normal as the rest of us, which maybe the whole point to the novel, but I wasn't intrigued enough to turn the next page to find out.

2005-09-20T18:48:00.000-07:00

No, I haven’t been working on the suicide novel, but thank you for not asking.

Basically, everything is on hold because I was getting off track, again.

As I see it, the problem was, as always, that I was more concerned with the solution than the cause and effect of the situation.

In this novel, I wanted to explore what nearly occurred to me a year ago when I was suffering so badly from depression. I devised a plan to commit a fake suicide as a means of “terminating” my current life and starting life anew somewhere else. Sort of like killing yourself, but not dying. After all, what is life, but a series of interrelated existences with other people? Change the people you relate to, change your life.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, I was about as sane as a rubber nail and everything that could go wrong with my plan did, which seems to be the case with plans devised by crazy people.

When I started writing the novel the main character, Arne Karlsson, was developed to be as far from me as I could get, but he ended up being a lot closer than I expected. Also, as I worked out the narrative, Arne came into some situations where I was unwilling to explore fully and simply stepped over them as if they were freshly dropped cow shit.

Now, my new work situation is not conducive to writing as I’ve been used to. In my former employment, I had a lot of time to write and, at the time, had time available on weekends to transcribe my handwritten material into the computer. Now, I have little time at work to write and even less time at home. Weekends are busily wasted on everything other than what I should be doing.

So, the book sits in the back of my mind simmering on low heat as I get up enough courage to delve into the dark reaches of my mind. Arne Karlsson needs to do the same thing, but in Arne’s case there is a hidden secret that is trying to get out. A little childhood memory so significant to his very being that it is unwilling to linger in forgotten corners of his mind anymore. A little memory devised by a devious author who once enjoyed pushing characters to the limit of their being as a means of exploring the human life experience.

Luckily, I’m still in the development stages of this novel and have the time to dilly-dally for a little while yet; not a long while, just long enough to reconfigure the time structure of my life.

Argotte Wins First Civil War Event 31.478 to 11.342

2005-09-17T10:42:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from History of the Argottean Federation

Chapter 4, continued

15 Nits 330—Hurlsburg Royal Palace. Government officials proudly announced today that combatant action groups from Argotte were successful last night in the first officially sanctioned civil war event on Solar Orbiting Habitat 4. The three teams were transported to and from Habitat 4 free of charge on Hreeli Consortium Garbage Scow 83-15-3.G.32A that visits Habitat 4 under a Waster Removal and Recycling Contract negotiated by Hreeli Consortium contract negotiator first class Buti bnu’Tun’snuf’ti and SOHO Central Waster Control administrator second class Stivi kri’Ten’juli’pi.

The junior varsity combatant action group from Taardi’velt Plain, making their first appearance in the civil war, scored 18 deaths to 5 within the first three minutes of play in their match against an obviously lesser trained combatant action group for Solar Orbiting Habitat 4, Spoke 5. Sisi phi’Buk’titi’tu led all dancers with 4 consecutive cranial deaths and 7 deaths total.

“On the first death, Sisi performed a near perfect right to left pirouette followed quickly by a deep squat with genitals exposed to his intended victim, who at that very moment was performing a rather ragged right turning quick step with left swish to one of Sisi teammates and, therefore, didn’t see Sisi rise up in an almost flawless pne’Bum swirl that ended with a quick jab with Sisi’s lentil fork into his victim’s left temple,” said Cumph mni’Bded’goosi’di, command sergeant, for the Taardi’velt Plain group.

“Blüd be praised, the blood from Sisi’s first victim squirted onto my face and broke my reverie at actually participating in a civil war event,” said Sisi’s teammate Duub tha’Piz’bubi’banz. “I quickly shook off my concrete slippers, pirouetted left to right, I have to admit it was a very bad pirouette and I’m sure I lost style points, and did a quick up thrust with my cattle prod directly into the heart of the dancer next to Sisi’s victim. Blüd be praised my victim bled all over the linoleum or I’d probably be walking home tonight.”

The final results of the junior varsity team were 20 deaths to 7, giving a combined kill score of 0.875; the combined team style score was 8.32 against their opponents 5.37, giving a final score of 7.375; their technical expertise score of 9.31 against 4.74, resulted in a final score of 11.425; calculated to a final combined score of 7.87.

The final results of the varsity team were 18 deaths to 11, for a combined kill score of 2.444; the combined team style score was 9.13 against 8.78, for a final score of 1.4; the technical expertise score of 9.67 against 9.59, for a final score of 0.320; calculated to a final combined score of 1.041.

The senior varsity team results were 19 deaths to 3, for a combined kill score of 1.105; the combined team style score was 9.89 against 9.14, for a final score of 5.25; the technical expertise score of 9.76 against 9.83, for a final score of –0.49; calculated to a final combined score of 0.838 (rounded).

Individual achievement awards include Sisi’s 4 consecutive cranial kills for an unprecedented 16 points, Sisi’s total kill score of 2.8; senior varsity team member Hub ni’Binz’thi’pi who performed a flawless three turn death spiral with self-emasculation for 1.429 (rounded) style points; and, varsity team member Cob pni’Cunz’slub’niss who scored a personal high of 6 unassisted deaths, for a total kill score of 1.5.

In accordance with approved formulae established by official enumerators of the Committee for the Prosecution of the Argotte-SOHO Civil War, the final results were tabulated and registered as Argotte 31.478 (rounded) to Solar Orbiting Habitat 4, Spoke 7, 11.342 (rounded).

33K and holding

2005-09-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I didn't write that much during my first week working at the Really Big Coffee Company. Actually, I did get some writing done—I'm back to writing on lined tablets like I did for the first two novels—but only half of it was transcribed into the computer.

The other half is a new story line/character. Denise, Arne's daughter from his first marriage, is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University where Johnny, Arne's youngest son from his second marriage, goes for his freshman and sophomore years. Yet, back when Arne first went AWOL from his second marriage, Denise had only just started at the University.

The piece I wrote was Denise discovering her father in a small, quaint, touristy town on the opposite bank of the Hudson River. Arne is on his way away from New York City, away from the serial killer his been living with and who he recently killed in a fight for his life.

The problem is: The stuff I've been writing about Johnny occurs nine to fifteen years later. This means it has too occur earlier in the book, but that changes the structure I've been working out in my head. This isn't a major problem, just an inconvenience considering the timeline of the entire novel.

Yet, the timeline is a major concern as it starts when Arne is five years old and his parents and older sister die. It ends when Arne and Johnny meet twenty years after Arne supposedly commits suicide. Johnny is nine when Arne supposedly jumps off the ferry. He is twenty-nine when they meet.

Arne is developing into a problem. When I first conceived the story Arne was my age when he ran away, not resurfacing until twenty years in the future. Although I am in a sense a "futurist", I didn't to have to carry the narrative into an unknown time. As a result, I moved Arne's age back so that he could leave twenty years before now, give or take a couple of years. This way Johnny is attending school in the Nineties and finding his father in the present time.

Also, each character's narratives are written in first person because I'm interested in how they react to each other. In Denise and Johnny's case, I want to get down inside them and see how they react to the world their father creates to meet his psychological needs. In Arne's case, I want him imagining he's in control of his world, while at the same time everything around his is totally screwed up because of his skewed world-view.

I suppose once I get everything written and layed out is some sense of order the story will make sense, but right now with each character going off in their own direction is getting a bit confusing. And, I suppose I might consider writing each character's story then piece the work together, sort of like someone might make a quilt.

Another 8,557 Words

2005-09-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

The suicide novel is progressing very well and I crossed the 30,000 word barrier last week, which also means I’ve passed the 100 page marker.

I suppose if I’d taken more creative writing classes my writing process wouldn’t be so unpredictable. I’d have outlines, research notes, character developments, and all the accoutrements needed to write the modern novel. Except, I have very little of that kind of stuff.

My research occurs as the narrative encounters situations or places I’m not familiar with. If I outlined the story before I wrote it, I could do the research in the beginning. Only, I don’t.

So, I write the characters into dark corners until I need to find a light to get them out. I guess the only problem I have with this process is that it works for me.

I’ve read about writing from an outline. Allowing the story to develop as the narrative expands the outline. I tried it once. I outlined a story from beginning to end; taking a character from Point A to “The End”. The only problem I encountered occurred once the expansion started, I felt constrained by the outline and the characters seemed to be hollow, as if there wasn’t any substance to them.

I suppose I could’ve gone back and practice outlining more, but I’m more interested in developing a writing career, not an outlining career.

And, so, I write as I do.

The current novel is constrained by a period of twenty years between the time the father runs away from home and when his youngest son, the only person who believed his father was alive, finds him in a tourist hotel bar in Rawlins, Wyoming. In the intervening years, the father tries his best to hide from his family while attempting to create a new life for himself, and his son grows from a too normal nine-year-old boy to a piano teacher at a small conservatory in south of Reno, Nevada.

At the halfway point, the father has run away, found his childhood teddy bear, found his younger brother’s gay lover, lived with a knife wielding insane serial killer who repeatedly rapes him, and committed murder. In the meantime, the son has received a cryptic message that his father may be alive, gone off to a fictional college in a fictional town on the western shore of the Hudson River where became friends with a gay jazz pianist who is nearly two years younger and the son of wealthy parents, is seduced by boy’s mother and is forced to live with the boy in exchange for continued access to the mother, and sees his world come to an end in two dramatic scenes of sexual excess.

The second half? I don’t know, other than the son will find his father. Whether he is the father he remembered as a child, remains to be seen.

War Returns to Hurlshome

2005-09-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from History of the Argottean Federation

Chapter 4, continued

1 Hurl 312—Palace of War, Hurlshome. On a snowy outcrop of methane ice, the sixty large fireplaces that were laid in for today’s celebration once again warm the forty foot, yellow granite, crenellated walls that enclose War’s palace. Today War and his select minions, Courage, Bravery, and Honor, returned to Hurlshome unhappy they are not needed by the Argotteans for the civil war that has yet to ravage a square inch of either parties territory.

“We weren’t wanted, no one called on us to participate,” Bravery reported to the Gods. “The whole thing is happening on paper. Oh, they’re calling up young men and women to serve in what they call a military organization, but they’re not being taught how to fight, how to shoot, or how to defend against a sneak attack. I couldn’t see where I belonged.”

“They certainly had no need for me, either,” Courage added. “Once I figured out they were learning to dance and not fight, I couldn’t see how I could help. Besides, it was the silliest dances you’ve ever seen. I’ll tell you one thing, the next time I’m asked to vote on giving humans freewill, I’m voting no.”

“And, I can tell you one other thing,” Courage continued, “these Argotteans will put the concept of war back into the far corners of time and space. Personally, I think this whole race is insane. Look what they did to Hurl. She was the most vibrant, provocative god any human would give their eye teeth to worship, but look at her now, she’s got the head of a pig and has a nose that won’t stop running, no matter how many decongestants she takes. We should have seen it coming. Somebody should have done something when they had a chance to change things.”

“But the worst thing about this whole endeavor,” Honor said, “is that they are completely ignoring I exist. They’re going to perform dances amongst each other. They’re going to get their young people to dance for them, but not your ordinary, every day dances. No! These dancers will be given weapons like broccoli flails, lentil forks, shit scrapers, and, I think, yes, those long pointy stick thingies, cattle prods I think they call them. But, these are only representations of the real thing because these have really sharp points and edges for stabbing and slicing the members of the other dance team.”

“And, they’re going to perform these dances in arenas throughout Argotte and on each Solar Orbiting Habitat,” added War. “They’ll have dances until one side ends up with more people than the other side. Lots of firm young partially clothed bodies prancing, swirling, squatting, turning, high stepping, swooping around with long sharp thingies jabbing at members of the other teams who are doing the very same thing to them. Oh, there will be blood and guts, severed limbs, and untold festering wounds, but they certainly won’t need us. Possibly the Artistic Muses may be of assistance, but not Bravery, Courage, or Honor. No, these Argotteans are the sorriest excuse for humans the Game has ever come up with. I wonder what combination caused this fiasco.”

Women of Wyoming

2005-08-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

In actuality the book has more short stories about Wyoming men than women. Wyoming is the kind of place where men ride the horses, tend the cattle, mend the fences, shoot the trespassers, and do a lot of other things that haven’t been done in more civilized parts of the country in a long time. The women are there, not providing a colorful background to the man’s shortcomings and idiosyncrasies, but standing firm against the nearly overwhelming masculine image of a man atop his favorite horse, an animal sometimes thought of in better terms than the person who warms his bed at night.

I finished reading Annie Proulx’s Close Range last night, completing the second half of the last short story, “Brokeback Mountain,” a nearly impossible love story between two men over the span of twenty years. The movie version, directed by Ang Lee (Hulk, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Sense and Sensibility, and others), screenplay by Pulitzer Prize winning author Larry McMurtry, and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, was recently completed, whether it lives up to its original remains to be seen. Personally, I doubt we’ll see any of the short story’s sex scenes between the lead characters. Yes, dear readers, the two men have a physical relationship that exists within the mores of cowboy culture where men may fuck with one another, but they certainly don’t fuck each other; and, those who do are often subject to a cowboy “justice” that does not tolerate queers. The story has a philosophical ending with one character learning to live with the loss of a lifetime of impossible love.

Having never read any of Annie Proulx’s work prior to this book, I was in for a shock evidenced by the first sentence of the lead story “The Half-Skinned Steer”: In the long unfurling of his life, from tight-wound kid hustler in a wool suit riding the train out of Cheyenne to geriatric limper in this spooled-out year, Mero had kicked down thoughts of the place where he began, a so-called ranch on strange ground at the south hinge of the Big Horns. Whew! And, the second sentence has more words and doesn’t end until the end of the paragraph.

This is literary writing at its best. This is the kind of writing I wish would come out instead of the mediocre stuff telling the stories my mind conceives. And, yet, I keep writing, keep focusing on writing better, writing the kind of words that will live on once this mass of flesh is reduced to ash and flung out upon the open sea.

24,692 Words

2005-08-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

Two weeks more and another 13K+ words gives me 7 chapters, 24.5K+ words, 87 pages. Output of the suicide novel is speeding up. Theoretically, I’m either one-fourth the way through a 100K word novel, or a little over one-third the way through a 60K word novel. Only time and revision can tell how long this thing is eventually going to end up.

The chapters are bouncing between father and son. The father searching for peace of mind. The son searching for his father.

The father has abandoned his family, is living with a knife wielding crazy man in Brooklyn, and recently went to see his younger brother’s former lover.

The son grew up and went to college believing his father is still alive. He was admitted to a small university in the Hudson Valley, and met the young son of a very rich family who also happens to be a sort of musical prodigy. The two boys become best friends, have a falling out, and are reunited.

The chapters that need major revision are still there and will remain until I reach the end. I’m beginning to see a shift in my early design of the plot line. I wanted to present the end and then show how the two characters reached that point, but now it looks like I’ll do the story in a more familiar format and follow each character to the eventual end. Either way, I already have the ending written, so at least I know where I’m going.

Right now, I’m at a point where the father is returning to the knife wielding crazy man where life’s normal hazards pale in comparison to living with a man who has no qualms about killing you without any reason at all. I see their relationship growing, while at the same time one slowly spirals down into an unbelievable insanity and the other finds a key that might fit the lock in the door to his future.

The son and his friend renew their friendship, while a dark shadow has the potential to destroy that friendship forever. As each grows toward manhood, their differences compound the difficulty they have in remaining friends. At the same time, the son gathers clues leading to the (already written) eventual meeting with his father.

War is Declared

2005-08-17T10:01:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from History of the Argottean Federation

Chapter 4, continued

1 Hurl 291—Solar Orbiting Habitat 3, Argotte system. Bubu pna’Muph’eta’tihi, Grand Burpidottir of SOHO (Solar Orbiting Habitat Organization), stood stark naked before the SOHO Grand Assembly of Representative Engineers and Select Burpiholders waving the most holy chromed adjustable wrench with her left hand while holding the gold-plated, ten and four receptacle, extension cord and stated in a clear, distinct voice, “I speak through Stan’s holy breath (cough), brought to this place by believers in Hurl’s holy phlegm (spit). Believers from a place where our ancestors were forced to leave by thoughtless bureaucrats (long fart) who could never know a power driver from a variable speed drill (wave holy wrench left to right). With Stan’s holy approval (cough), I declare war on those bureaucrat’s vile offspring (three short juicy farts). Righty Tighty Lefty Loosey. May we achieve true victory through engineering truth (spit).”

Watching from the third row, Dweema czn’Zaat’mna’cuula, Exterior Power Electrician First Class SOHO 6 and Select Burpiholder, Range 3, Spoke 7, got to his feet, immediately quieting the Grand Assembly, for it is always most offensive to stand in the presence of a naked Grand Burpidottir of SOHO. All eyes, especially Bubu pna’Muph’s, were on the lowly electrician as he began to sing, “It was only crème, white gooey crème.”

Then the entire Grand Assembly rose to their feet and joined Dweema in singing the SOHO national anthem, “Burpi’s Crème Pie.”

After the vote to ratify the declaration of war, members of the Grand Assembly joined Bubu pna’Muph, now wearing traditional Hurlsday SOHO attire of translucent forest green plastic coveralls and black over teal work sandals, for rewarmed sweet tea and stale saltines in the foyer. Security personnel escorted Dweema to the nearest airlock and expelled him into deadly vacuum.

11,000 Words

2005-08-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

Two weeks and a few days (18 days) and I’m (interesting side note: Microsoft Word dinged “I’m” and offered “I are” as an alternative. Makes one wonder who is the cause of the dumbing down of America’s youth.) over 11,000 words on the Suicide novel. 18 days, 11,000 words, that’s a little over 600 words a day. I’ve been trying to get at least 500 hundred each day, but have exceeded that on occasion when the flow is going very well and I’m reluctant to stop. So, 60,000 words makes a novel, that means I still have a lot of work to go.

Actually, since this is in first person, I have a lot of work to go because I’ll probably end up reverting to third person once the story is completely told.

Right now, I’m starting at the end and then jumping back to move forward. Arne, the father, and Johnny, his youngest son, meet unexpectedly in a bar in the middle of nowhere Wyoming. They haven’t seen each other for twenty-two years, when Arne left Johnny’s mother and his brother and sister. Johnny was nine at that time.

This should work to get the story told, but I’m not comfortable with this form. I’d like to tell the story from the beginning and run it up to the point where they meet. So, yes, I probably have a lot more work to do on this.

The Southern Novelist

2005-08-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

Is there a difference between a Southern writer and one from New England, the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, or California? By what dynamic do Southern writers conceive their stories? Is it the overall small town ruralness of their subjects? Is it the vast divides between black and white, rich and poor, or highly educated and barely literate? Is it the dark beauty of a pine, persimmon, and live oak filled countryside full of ticks, chiggers, possum, squirrels, stills, pulpwood, and boys in dirty bib overalls?

Or, like writers everywhere, they take bits and pieces from their wonderful, and somewhat unique, environment to fill their stories with color, people, feelings, smells, and an air of nature’s beauty, bounty, and savageness.

I just finished reading Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. This is the author’s first novel, but not her first book, nor her first attempt at writing fiction. Follow the link on the author for more information on this accomplished, award winning author.

The year is 1964 and Lily Owens lives with her father, who raises peaches, in rural South Carolina. Lily longs to discover the truth about her mother, the woman her fathers says abandoned both of them. Her search for her mother leads her to run away with her black housekeeper. They follow the one clue Lily has of her mother and end up living with three black sisters living in a pink house. One of the sisters is a beekeeper and holds the grail of Lily’s quest.

This is a wonderful coming-of-age story set at a time of dramatic change in race relations throughout the United States and particularly in the South. As Lily searches for her place in the world, yearning for an imagined past, and living in a world that makes little sense, she finally runs into a truth she didn’t expect, nor desire.

Sue Monk Kidd fills The Secret Life of Bees with wonderful characterizations, a bounty of colorful nature, and the intricate care of bees. You see the South through the innocent eyes of a fourteen-year-old girl who struggles to understand the illogical race relations of her day.

This is a good book that deserves an honored place in any library of debut novels.

The Gods Gather to Celebrate a Cleansing

2005-08-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from History of the Argottean Federation

Chapter 4

1 Hurl 291—Palace of War, Hurlshome. On a snowy outcrop of methane ice, forty foot, yellow granite, crenellated walls enclose War’s palace on the home planet of the Argottean Gods. Today War and his select minions, Courage, Bravery, and Honor, are hosting a party to celebrate their imminent departure to Argotte and the sixteen Solar Orbiting Habitats.

The Argotteans have worked themselves into a proper tizzy over a typical Argottean bureaucratic misunderstanding. Unlike previous spats, population pressures on thirteen Solar Orbiting Habitats and five city-states on Argotte assisted this one. Unbeknownst to the humans, though, the direct involvement of Hate and her sniveling little brother Prejudice played a major role in stirring up the necessary people to commit the ultimate act of human foolishness, offering young bodies on War’s bloody altar. (Although, he’s never had an altar on Argotte because all sacrifices fall under the realm of Blüd, god of sacrifice, thoughtless endeavor, unfortunate mistakes, and executioners, War is willing to participate in whatever manner the Argottean humans deem appropriate. Being an anthropomorphic being, War only exists at the collective whim of humans.)

Suicide – the novel, part 5

2005-08-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

When I had the two job interviews last week I got out of sync with writing the story. I got back on Thursday, but couldn’t seem to get anywhere with the narrative.

So, I started over writing in first person. I’m starting at the end where Arne and his youngest son, Johnny, get together in a bar in Rawlins, Wyoming. Arne is on his way home after burying his younger brother’s former boyfriend. Johnny is on his way home after visiting his stepsister in New York, about fifty miles from Arne’s home.

The story will be structured as brief moments in the present as Arne and Johnny reconcile over Arne’s departure twenty-two years earlier balanced against Arne telling the story of his life from when he ran away from home at five to running away from home at fifty-five. He will talk about seeing himself as being alone throughout his life even though he has a best friend when growing up, a wife and children for eighteen years after college, and a new wife and children after the first wife dies.

He will mostly talk about struggling with depression and the consequences of listening to the insane side of your mind when you’re struggling the most.

The most important thing is I’m writing the story out. If, at the end, I decide to go back and do it in third person, at least I’ll have the whole story to work with instead of having to completely rewrite it as I’m trying to do with my second novel.

A New Planet Joins Argotte

2005-07-30T11:34:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from History of the Argottean Federation

Chapter 4

10 Nits 140—Snerp’tweerb Spaceport, Argotte. Today, an estimated audience of over 25K public television viewers watched Pnubbi pnu’Boo’rho’tuubi, Grand Hurlsboyo of Argotte, push The Big Red Button launching the first joint Argotte-’xrsc materials acquisition mission. The eighty and five year mission to an uninhabited planet 1,569K parsecs from Argotte will return refined iron, copper, nickel, gold, and, of most importance, unimaginable of quantities of titanium, vanadium, and talc. Since this mission will utilize Jooli psi’Nubi’psi’bdebebli’s amended dimensional propositions, it is expected the materials will be delivered into orbit above Argotte about three days after takeoff.

Early in the project’s negotiations, the ’xrsc proposed placing 372 surviving Argottean miners and support personnel (including an expected 134 descendants), who would make up the mission’s negotiated human component, on a planet 0.035K parsecs from Argotte. The ’xrsc advised the returning Argotteans will be out of sync with time on Argotte and it would be advantageous to relocate them or do away with them, an option the Royal Family did not wish to consider.

The planet, named Belenda by the ’xrsc, has a mainly tropical climate embracing three continents spread across mainly equatorial to subtropical zones. Both poles do not have any appreciable land masses. The overall warm climate of the planet is not conducive to growing broccoli, lentils, peas, or other cold season crops According to the ’xrsc, there is an abundance of sun and broad, white sand beaches extend down to a quiet surf. The ’xrsc were unable to satisfactorily explain to the Royal Family what white sand looks like as Argottean sand is dreary gray or pathetic black. The ’xrsc did say that the Belendans will eventually be a happy people and pose no threat to the future of Argotte.

Suicide, the novel – Part 4

2005-07-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

Another week has passed and I’m still working on Chapter 3. The word count is up to 7,500+, but I’m still on Chapter 3. I have to keep reminding myself that the first two times down this course I was writing all this early stuff on lined tablets and transcribing (and editing) all of that into the computer on the weekends. I prefer writing on the computer and that is why I bought the laptop. It allows me to take the novel wherever I go and I hope I'll be going somewhere soon.

Although I am working on Chapter 3, I'm actually working on a different Chapter 3. The flashback to 2 years ago needed more fill; and, I’m beginning to think it needs to go on for 2 or 3 more chapters. This event is supposed to begin to explain why Arne is so screwed up in the head, but Chapter 2 as initially written didn’t explain shit, even after adding additional material. So I need to add at least another chapter’s worth of material to give further substance to his present insanity. Of course, there has be other flashbacks for further evidence of his instability, but those have yet to be devised.

After all, this is all made up. This is all about one man's life and the horrible way he lived it. In the end, or at least one of the ends I've come up with, he's seventy-something when he runs into his youngest son in Rawlins, Wyoming. They're both passing through, going in opposite directions. Arne recognizes Johnny first and is tempted to just walk on by, but doesn't. In another ending, Arne dies attempting to fake his suicide. In another ending, his current family dies trying to stop him from committing suicide. That would be very tragic and devastating to Arne, but it might be a viable ending, too. We'll have to see where this thing leads me.

For review, Arne is troubled by thinking his parents’ and sister’s deaths were his fault, even though he was only five years old at the time. Also, he is trouble by his first wife’s death from cancer and his younger brother’s death of AIDS. Both of them practically died in Arne’s arms. The children of his first marriage are grown, but live on the other side of the country; the son and his family in southeastern Missouri and his daughter in the New York City metro area.

Arne’s current wife and children have gone off leaving him alone on his birthday. His best friend from grade school through college is having a fling or whatever with a young twenty-something graduate student from Berkeley named Boris Something-ich.

And, so, Arne takes off driving to who knows where. For him at that moment it is a solution. Not a very good solution, but a solution all the same.

I think when he arrives at wherever he’s going, Arne will come to a decision about himself that will impact his future, the current time of the story where he is trying to kill himself, but ends up seeing others die.

The solution to his current problem will be to run away, too, but it will be done in a more accomplished manner, more like he actually committed suicide, actually died and went on to the great beyond, or wherever people’s souls go.

Personally, I think souls come back for another go as the Hindus and Buddhists believe, but with the general increase in worldwide populations, reincarnation doesn’t work unless souls are being promoted from other animals. I suppose if the increase in people is balanced against a corresponding decrease in other animal populations reincarnation will work, but who’s to say what really happens. All of this thinking about spirits, souls, and gods, may simply be our mind's way of dealing with a life that is not threaten by predators. When death is not a daily risk, what is to say our minds didn't come with a solution that make sense if you don't think about it too hard.

After all, thinking may simply be a result of an evolutionary mistake and we’re all going to die when the next asteroid strikes.

Being Literary in Tuscany

2005-07-22T12:01:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading In Maremma by David Leavitt and Mark Mitchell. Up until now I knew very little about rural Italy and the daily life of Italians. Fortunately, this book helped in both areas.

According to Answers.com Maremma is an area in Italy, made up of southern Grosseto (Tuscany) and northern Viterbo (Latium) along the Tyrrhenian Sea and extending east to the Apennines. Flourishing in Etruscan and Roman times, it became marshy and was largely abandoned in the Middle Ages. The marshes were drained in the 19th and 20th centuries; and, there are now rich borax mines, good hunting grounds, and fertile areas where cattle and horses are raised.

According to Leavitt and Mitchell, Maremma is full of people trying to get by just as many people the world over are trying to do; except the people of Maremma are Italian, rural, small-townish, and more representative of Tuscany than people in the more touristy areas.

Having spent so much time in Italy, Leavitt and Mitchell decide to buy a house and, luckily, they took enough notes to write about that experience and the experience of living in Italy, like getting a driver’s license and having to choose between stores, restaurants, and where to have their olives pressed into oil.

The only hindrance to the stories was the preponderance of “literary” words sprinkled through the narrative. You know, those words no one uses anymore, aren’t in any modern dictionaries, but are found too often in “literary” stories and articles. They may be representative of a good post-secondary education, but if you don’t use the word when buying groceries at Costco, why use it in your writing.

Then there were the Italian words. You can tell they’re Italian because they’re in italics. Some are defined, others not, but there didn’t seem to be any sense to whether they would be defined, or not. After a while, I simply took the Huck Finn option and skipped over them figuring if they were important to the narrative, the authors would have provided a definition, otherwise they were simply added for “color” in much the same way as the “literary” words.

Mostly, though, In Maremma is an enjoyable book with more than enough information about living in rural Italy and living like Italians, like hanging your laundry out to dry or finding tarantulas or asps in your mailbox.

Interestingly, the Victorian novelist Ouida (pen name of Maria Louise de la Ramé) (1839-1908) published a book (novel?) with the same title in 1882. Ouida is famous for the children’s classic A Dog of Flanders (also see movie starring David Ladd [Alan’s son]).

Might they be as gods?

2005-07-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from History of the Argottean Federation

Chapter 3, continued

1 Hurl 4—On Board ’xrsc Star-Cruiser 3.9 in orbit over Hurlshome. An unexpected consequence of existence in recondite dimensions is the possible interaction with gods and other trans-dimensional beings that live on the astral planes. The ’xrsc, probably because of their nonexistence in physical reality, became apparent to two dark sub-angels in Evil’s camp.

Grelinth and Cobbin never have been what anyone would call overachievers. Brought into existence solely to offer hints of doubt, they earn their keep in the number of first-time winners they convince to be one-time winners.

They encountered the ’xrsc who were, at that time, struggling with a consequence of existing in recondite dimensions, the difficulty in defining the original “now” in relation to a current “now.” If it hadn’t been a timely infusion of future knowledge from ’xrsc existing in ver. 9.7A, the ’xrsc in ver. 3.9 may have fallen to Grelinth’s and Cobbin’s whispers of doubt.

Using the future knowledge, the ’xrsc contacted the gods living on Hurlshome. At first the gods were suspicious of the ’xrsc intent, but Spud, god of potato farmers, obnoxious beer drinkers, and amateur aerialists, offered a convincing argument.

“Since we, the Gods of Argotte, were given control of Argotte by the Four Players,” Spud said at an informal gathering in the garden room at Famine and Pestilence’s palatial collection of virtual mud huts on a barren plain of methane ice, “it is in our best interest to offer our assistance to this strange computer language that has achieved true-life.”

With foreknowledge, the ’xrsc knew they would accept the Gods’ offer and enter an orbit around Hurlshome. A condition of the Gods was that the ’xrsc adopt a non-involvement agreement when dealing with localized Argottean conflicts. This suited the ’xrsc since this freed them from having to deal with humans in their excruciatingly slow day to day affairs.

Editor's Notes: Since the ’xrsc are perceived to exist in six dimensions and humans can only perceive three, the ’xrsc had to adopt a means of dealing with humans that would maintain their inherent superiority. But, since they are recondite, they exist today and much as they exist at the end of time. They could be on a ship nearing the Milky Way Galaxy at the same time they were offering an Argottean lentil farmer quick delivery on forty tons of ammonium sulfate.

The ’xrsc developed the human interface kiosk to deal with humans on a regular basis. Although the unit is constructed in six dimensions, it appears to humans as a three dimensional object. On Belenda, the ’xrsc developed a fully-networked robot that could appear to move on its twelve rubberized wheels. It is somewhat disturbing that the Belendans never looked close enough to notice that the paired wheels were pointed in six different directions.

’xrsc star cruisers that ferried humans around the Argottean Federation and to other ’xrsc resource planets in the Home Galaxy were constructed so that the human quarters appeared to be three dimensional while the rest of the ship was six dimensional. Also, since star cruisers always traveled in the recondite dimension, they had the ability to arrive at their destination before they departed, but the ’xrsc never knowingly performed this trick of reality while transporting humans short distances.

For the most part, a trip on a star cruiser was mostly show. Vibration generators created the sensation of roaring engines and visual monitors displayed scenes of Argotte and other planets of the Argottean Federation. The humans ate, drank, slept, studied, partied for however long the ’xrsc thought necessary and then they arrived at their destination, oblivious to the fact they had been, in all likelihood, in far orbit around their destination for most of their trip.

Suicide, the novel – Part 3

2005-07-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like I’ve reached the end of Chapter 2, or at least the end of Chapter 2 of the First Draft. Who’s to know whether this stuff makes it to the end product?

Chapter 2 is a flashback to an event two years earlier at a time when the main character, Arne Karlsson, has been neglecting his family, his second family. The day is his birthday and he wakes up to an empty house. Wife, three children, and dog are gone; and, seemingly of importance, the Suburban is gone, too. Arne doesn’t know if his wife can drive a stick shift. An additional item of evidence is the entry on all the calendars in the house for that day: Dick!. Yes, with an exclamation point.

Arne’s own calendar indicates he’s supposed to have an appointment with his former best friend from the neighborhood and college. Their relationship ended three days before they graduated from college the best friend raped the woman who was to become Arne’s first wife. They haven’t seen each other for thirty years and suddenly they’re back in each other’s lives, only Arne knows very little about his former best friend, other than he made a ton of money in Silicon Valley and got out before the dotcom bust.

Chapter 2 also reveals a little about what happened to Arne’s first wife. And, we find out Arne had a younger brother who was only a year and a half at the time Arne’s parents and older sister were killed in an accident Arne blames on himself. Yes, Arne had a younger brother. He died of AIDS in the mid-Eighties. He came home to let Arne care for him in his last days.

I also worked out a list of characters with birthdates, ages, and, when appropriate, death dates. I had originally thought the AIDS victim was one of Arne’s children from the first marriage, but for one of those children to die, Arne to get remarried and have a new family, didn’t jive with Arne’s age at the time of the story; so, a little reorganizing of characters was in order, plus making certain what I've written so far included the changes.

So, now, we move on to Chapter 3, only I’m not quite certain where this will go. Probably I’ll return to the present and deal with Arne’s depression a little more. I need to work on his family life, too. His youngest son is having problems. When he was seven, the boy kept his bedroom overly tidy. You know, hospital corners, comforter neatly folded at the foot, top blanket taut enough to bounce a quarter, pillow that doesn’t look like its been slept on, those kind of problems. Obsessive-Compulsive? On top of everything else, the boy is Arne’s favorite. I’m beginning to think maybe this son will be the lifesaver Arne will reach for when the time comes for him to die.

And, yet, I’m not certain Arne will die. I’m still thinking maybe he will simply run away and try to start a new life. Maybe, he’ll end up somewhere working for Wal-Mart. In an earlier version of this story, his youngest son finds him fifteen or so years in the future and they have a reconciliation of sorts.