Randomness !

Wedding Stuff

So, I know people want some news on the wedding but, honestly at this point Erik and I are just enjoying being engaged--we haven't even set a date yet. We are thankful for all the (albeit unsolicited) advice from our friends and family on marriage though. It will probably be in California somewhere because we both love it here, it's just getting Erik's family over here and hoping some of his groomsmen make parole.

The Arcadians

A majority of this story changed drastically from what I planned it to be. It was originally more of a Da Vinci Code type thing where Alan's meaning of life, his world is turned completely upside down but, it over time became more socially conscious and something different. The idea for the Arcadian came from LiLe who asked me a question about Middle America back in chapter 3 or 4.

In this reality Middle America is empty except for Neo-Luddites who choose to live there. So, Arcadia refers to what was formerly Arcadia, Wisconsin. There are some little notes about it so, I will put them in list form :

* Eau Gaulle (Shai's last name) is a city in Wisconsin and so is Paris, his uncle's first name. Saron and Shai (pronounced Shy) are just names I like.

* The townships headquarters architecture is based on the Georgia State Capitol with the gold dome.

* This fictional Arcadia landscape is based on Middlebury College in Vermont.

The Neo-Luddites are based on the Quakers in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Having a group like the Quakers was an idea I always had for this piece and it was always inspired by the Quakers in that novel. The idea of taking care of strangers no matter what their past deeds had been or what brought them there. In fact, the Quaker family in the novel, the Hallidays have the same name as the Hallidays in the serial: Ruth, Rachel and Siamyn (which is a version of Simon so, it has nothing to do with fish. I changed the spelling so no one would catch on)

Side Note and Musings, um Ramblings ?

On a side note, Vincenzo Natali the director of Splice will be directing the film version of William Gibson's Neuromancer, one of the books I based some of the characteristics of this serial off of. I myself stand in awe of this mans work even if I can't follow half of it.

On that note, I like Lile re-read comments and someone asked me why I did not use a female protagonist. I don't have a reason except that Alan just came to me as a complete character. I will say that one of my issues with some CP short stories and books is the not so great female characters, I do kind of feel some of these authors (who are usually always male, have not come across one female) struggle with writing good females. There are certain words referring to the female anatomy you should not use in a sex scene . . .

In some sense Sara was my answer to this. I wanted to write a strong female character and in some sense she is the main character and Alan is just the plot device.

Does that make sense ? I didn't think so, I'll come back to this rambling later.

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Playlist

-1-Cello Suite #1 -- Bach/ YoYo Ma ( I like this music for a certain reason)

-2-Taking Over Me-- Evanescence (one of the songs from my original concept playlist. I know I need to stop with the "emo" music)

-3-Hazy by - Rosi G ( Thanks Pandora !)

I write like . . .

New Time Waster

So, I found this new time waster called I write like (iwl.me is the address) . You put in text and it analyzes it to tell you who you write like. It uses 50 authors to choose from and it is based on style, word choice, whether you use dialogue or not. For fun, I put in a passage from chapter 1 of Veritas, the chapter I thought was the best. I got Cory Doctrow. I did not know who he was but, apparently he is a science fiction writer.

I also put in chapter 9 of HoF, my favorite chapter so far and got Charles Dickens. I messed around with LiLe's before and I think I got Edgar Allen Poe for one chapter.

Also when I put this in (something I made up) :

His eyes shined like red rubies. I looked deep into them as our lips locked in a deep passionate kiss. Much to my chagrin he took his pale hand in mine and pushed me away.

"We can't" he said

"Why not ?," I asked fiddling with my bracelet.

"There is so much you do not understand," he explained,"The pain I feel just being near you,"

I got Stephanie Meyer. I know, I'm terrible

Blogging

I know I've been slacking on my blogging but, I will pick up on it for the next entry

Chapter 10 & 11

Alright on to the next chapters. I use one song twice so, the number 5 comes up twice. Speaking of the playlist prepare yourself for some LiLe Throwbacks. I just realized how pretty purple and gray are together. Hmmm . . .

Chapter 10

Citizen Soldier by 3 Doors Down (Saint's theme song)

Chapter 11

-1- Lithium Instrumental

-2- How to Save A Life Instrumental

-3- Life After You Acoustic

-4- Gravity Acapella (you all knew Sara Barielles was coming eventually, I love her !)

-5-Blow Me Away (One of Sara's Theme songs)

-6- My Immortal

-5- Blow Me Away again,

Chapter 9

This is the first time I have ever written something and knew exactly what everything is leading to and it is making me kind of nervous for some reason. I don't have much to blog about at this point but, I will say this chapter is one of the longer ones and I think my next post will be a 2 chapter post.

Also, I am getting a bit screwed over by playlist.com as well but, I'm dealing. They only stole one song that I really, really loved so I will have to youtube it !

Oh, wait I do want to post about some of the things in the comments :

Mjollner

Mjollner is romanticized version of Mjöllnir, the hammer of Thor. The hammer is representative of the hammer and scythe on the Soviet Flag. So the Mjollner are the Soviet crime family in this universe. I was originally going to call them the Red Scythes but, I didn't really like it. Also, the hammer and scythe on the Soviet flag represent agriculture and industry in case you were wondering.

Chapter 8

In the last chapter Alan takes something from Minnie's drawer and says just in case. He is taking the gun to kill Dakota. This was added at the very last minute because I needed to explain why he had a weapon.

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Playlist

-1- Under The Bridge
-2-Bitter Earth
-3-False Pretense
-4- White Flag

I'm going to need a lot of somethings . . .

Hello all,

So, this update is a little rough because I've been busy (you may want to open this link in Google Chrome) with certain changes in my life. There has been lots of dinners and relative meetings.

Anyway this chapter, in retrospect could have been tacked on to chapter 7, in fact it originally was so, it is one of the shorter chapters but it is a launching point for something bigger. I have a huge chunk of this story planned out and leading somewhere, although the course changes a lot.

I have to say I am nervous about planning out ahead because that was what I did with IVB and that contributed a little to why it was so short. I actually have "theme songs" for most of the characters and I'm not sure if they will ever fit in to the tone of the story.

Anyway, I am getting excited about this again, I just need to remember to pace myself.

Cyberspace/Internet

Carleigh asked about this in Chapter 5 and I wanted to wait until now to address it. She asked what the difference was between cyberspace and internet and here it is :

The term "Cybernetics" refers to anything you add to your body to perform a task better. So, essentially *prepare to be freaked out* eyeglasses are a type of cybernetics *okay maybe not so freaked out*

So, in this story the internet and cyberspace are the same thing but, cyberspace is a term used because they use something attached to their bodies to access it, the Syndicates.

Past, Present, Future

Something I try to keep track of but haven't been is how I use my verbs to tell the story. I use a lot of "ing" verbs traditionally but, using present tense creates a more fast paced story. To better explain look at this passage from Chapter 5. This isn't the best example but here is the original :
Low acoustic, auto tuned electroica droned out of invisible speakers and the multi colored light strobed along to the pulses. In the corner rows of white bubbles hosted Stimsim casts.

Compare it to

There was low acoustic autotuned electonica droning out of invisible speakers and multi-colored lights were strobbing along to the pulse. In the corner there were rows of while bubble hosting Stimsim casts.

The first uses present verbs the other doesn't and it sounds a bit stilted.

Chapter 8

Alright so this chapter only has one song because the pacing of this chapter changes a lot and I would rather have one good song than a bunch of random ones.

Chapter 8

No Air by Lea Michele and Cory Monteith

California Girls . . We're undeniable !

Blog Stuff
So, I have time to post an update before I go to a Toy Story 3 Midnight premire with Erik. It has been busy at Cobalt and we are all preparing for some changes but, it is also exciting. I am just really glad I have this on the side because it's just something nice and kind of grass roots that I love doing.

Plus this web serial seems like a Care Bear Movie after spending a few hours editing JB's new book.

Clarification

Lile did point out the passage I changed. It was :

“ Wanna hear some crazy shit ?,” Pascal began, “ Before the bombs I heard a Mjollner configed a black clinic leech to do a full conversion,”

It originally said the Yakuza. They are talking about Belle at this point and she is supposed to be on the opposite side (the Mjollner) not on their side the Yakuza.

For a long time I had no idea where the Yakuza thing was going (or if I was even going to use it) so I just threw it in their as a CP term and forgot to change it.

Shawna-Verse

In my head I would love to create stories that all took place in the same universe and could have crossovers. Kind of like Stephen King. (in a side note I have an idea for a hilarious black comedy-ish one shot with Slate and Tomas Alexander)

I was listening to some of the songs from the IVB playlist that I never used and I somehow ended up re-reading IVB and I realized I have a horrible tendecy to reuse names. For instance

Tessa- Is the name of Juliana's stepmom and Elias's cousin. Although her name is Telsa for two sentences.

Belle -- Is the name of a stripper in UL and a character in Veritas

Sara -- Is the name of a character in Veritas and Slate's stepmother's name. Sadie is also a dimunitive of Sara.

Nick in IVB's last name is Minnoe pronounced like Minnow.

These were all just coincidences, and I thought it was kind of funny. There were a few others but, I forgot what they were. I think I've used Henry twice as well.

Inspiration

Also, in case it wasn't obvious Dakota was inspired by Alex Delarege in TCO. I meant to post this last week.

The man had watery aqua eyes that seemed to glow in the dim light of the arcade-- he had orange hair in tendrils around his pierced ears. His face was pale and his dark eyelashes were so long they were practically caressing Minnie's face every time he blinked

Moving On

That's enough blogging for one day. I have more things to add but, I will spread them out over posts.

TBH, I have been sitting on this chapter a while for no particular reason. I've been working ahead and if I needed to change something in a previous chapter I wanted to keep it "unpublished".

Now, I have a much, much clearer image as to where this story is headed.

Chapter 7

Playlist

-1- Teardrop by Massive Attack (or the house theme song)

-2- Love Theme from The Notebook

-3- When I'm Gone by 3 Doors Down

-4- Colorblind by Natalie Walker


Sidenote-- While I don't have a plot or anything in mind I have been thinking a lot about UL and how I liked writing it . . .

This is not an update

Hi,

I didn't want to string you all along. This is less of an update and more of a obligatory mandatory posting by our lovely PR firm the Midnight Company.

Jill Lamberton Ryder, our PR woman is directing/producing/starring in a play called . . . well, I can't remember the name it's a bit long. Anyway more info can be found at http://forredheads.webs.com/

Also, Joel tells me lots of things are happening at Cobalt so, visit our public webstream at http://lifestream.aol.com/stream/cobaltpub.

Update coming soon.

If You're Keeping Count this is post . . . 80

Hiatus

I guess I have been on a bit of a hiatus lately. Between work and personal relationships some things have to take a backseat. People say it is a lot easier to deal with fiction than real life but, I sometimes find the exact opposite. Sometimes writing something can make me more of an emotional wreck than dealing with something in the real world.

When I began this story I was obsessed with it. I read and did so much research and somehow that flame smoldered a bit. I think I was taking on to much. It was like I read Harry Potter and then tried to recreate my own wizarding story. I was stressed because I could never do anything remotely similar to the wonderful things I read. And with this break I completely forgot where I was going with this story.

Anyway, I think I am past that stage and am ready to start writing again. I used my reference quotes and themes and restructured the outline a bit. While this story is still inspired heavily by concepts from speculative fiction, cyberpunk short stories, novels, tabletops and video games it is becoming something of my own as well.

Retirement

After I finished Veritas I intended to go into web serial retirement. However reading LL and House of Fierro has made me want to sit down and write a romance kind of story. Maybe even a supernatural one ? Well, probably not supernatural but a romance defiantly.

As my boss occasionally says "The mark of a good writer is one who inspires others to write," and that defines Lile's writings to me. I also tend to write in 'ensembles' and I would love to write something with less characters, something more intimate if you will.

Chapter 5

So, chapter 5 was labeled in my notes as somewhat of a comedic interlude. It didn't intentionally add to the plot I just wanted to try that chaotic cyberpunk style of writing and creating that world.

I wanted to blog about the 'style' of writing I was trying and everything but, I wrote that so long ago I forgot exactly how I did it. I know it was a lot of present participle. That's one of the interesting things about language especially English, the forms of verbs you use (or I use anyway) can say a lot about a character.

There was also a misprint in chapter 5 that I fixed and I will explain it in the next blog. I mixed up two words.

Chapter 6

I wish I could say this was 30+ days of work but, it's not, it's just a long time coming. This chapter is music and pic lite.

Chapter 6

+1+ Alone at Night

+2+ Soul Meets Body (String Edition)