Void Engineering

All right! All RIGHT!

I give up. I’ll be writing the not-exactly-a-vampire-story-but-kind-of next. I know when I’ve been beaten.

When I’ve been beaten: When a story attaches itself to my brain and unspools itself every moment my concentration isn’t focused on something specifically. I always know it’s time to wrap a story up when the next one starts pushing in the queue and distracting me. And this one’s been yammering for weeks.

So all right. I give.

…and people think writers control the stories. Ha.

The story- probably another novel-length piece- will be called Take Me Back to the Garden of Love. And it’s not really about vampires. But sort of. But not really.

But sort of.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what I want to do after The Outsiders finishes.

…which is probably not a good idea, since I should be focusing on finishing it first. But this seems to be how I work. What was it Yoda said in The Empire Strikes Back? “Never his mind on where he was. What he was doing.”

Yes, I’ve just quoted Yoda. In case you were wondering what calibre of geek you were dealing with.

Anyway…

I have a few directions I could go in. In particular, I’ve been thinking about doing a novel specifically about magic, and the experience of magical initiation. I use ‘initiation’ in the esoteric sense, rather than as relates to any group or specific act. For more information, see Aleister Crowley: “Initiation never ends.”

But I can tell already that it will be a big, unwieldy, difficult thing to write- and probably not as easily accessible as The Outsiders. And probably even harder to convince anyone to publish.

I’ve also been thinking about doing (deep breath) a sort of vampire novel. No, not the Stephanie Meyer sort of vampire novel. Or even the Anne Rice sort of vampire novel. Something new. Hopefully.

I also have in mind, at some point, a sprawling, Gormenghastian-size project called Castle. But that may still be a bit in the future.

I also also should go back someday and re-write Cyberium, and get it right this time.

I also also also should go back and tell some of Harmon Blake’s story, and then there’s that book abut the Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness, and eventually the sequel to The Outsiders (is that giving away too much?), and so on…

I suppose there are worse fates than having too many ideas.

Important things I have learned this weekend:

Being kicked squarely in the thigh hurts. For a good long while.

German herbal liqueurs are not to be drunk immoderately.

It is possible to hurt oneself without actually doing anything out of the ordinary, or in fact anything at all. (My foot hurt Friday morning. Ached, even. Rather a great deal. What mad, wild stunts had I been pulling? I’d been sleeping.)

The Plumblossom Sabre Form is more difficult than it looks. Only slightly less complicated is the act of getting into and out of a tiny car while carrying a sword, a bottle of tea oil, and a pair of gym pants.

I can’t decide what to write after I finish The Outsiders.

…which I didn’t work on very much these past few days. I meant to bash out a bit after running through my forms tonight (this morning?), but had to stop when I found myself typing with my face.

That is all. Goodnight.

To pay the bills- until I unleash my written word upon an unwitting populace- I deliver medication to nursing homes. I drive through many towns. I live in the United States of America. Tonight, my skin and every article of clothing I was wearing smells of firework smoke. I drove past neighborhoods that were akin to war zones, wreathed in smoke, lit by fire and bleary flashlights. Bangs sounded from odd corners, bottle rocket ambushes enacted on my Toyota Yaris by fourteen-year-old children. Drunken adults wandered down the center lanes, carrying large bottles of amber liquid. It took me an hour to drive a distance that I normally cover in ten minutes.

And yet, I don’t envy the nurses I deliver to. One of them asked me tonight, in all seriousness: “What’s today’s date?”

Another said, yesterday: “I’ll be with you in a minute. Somebody died.”

Just a quick one here.

I’ve just finished reading (listening to, actually) Neal Stephenson’s novel Anathem. It is ridiculously long, filled with pages upon pages of technical details and philosophical oratory, and centered around mathematics.

It is also really damn good.

This was my second try. The first time, I got several hours in, got distracted, and never quite picked it up again. This time I did the whole thing (it runs about 900 pages in print form), and I’m glad I did. It starts very, very, VERY slow…but it pays off if you stick with it. A healthy interest in mathematics doesn’t hurt either.

And you have to get past Mr. Stephenson’s thinly veiled contempt for most of modern society. And his tendency, like Heinlein before him, to turn conversations into monologues on whatever branch of science or mathematics he happens to be pursuing.

Yet for all that, Anathem rocks my socks.

That is all.

Ochani has offered me a place to leave my brain droppings.

I think I’ll use this blog mainly as a supplemental for The Outsiders. There are quite a few things that could either use a bit of explanation (what jagertee is, for instance), or that I have a few thoughts of my own about. So that’s where this will come in.

I’ll probably also use this as a note-to-self machine, to ramble about future projects, ideas, crackpot theories, and whatever other half-formed junk comes into my head. So, you know…you’ve been warned.

-JP