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| Vivi found Caturday! |
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Ara's Purr
Ara knew I was having a bad day a week or so ago and so insisted on getting some good cuddles. She's my baby Ara, and I felt much better after some of her good strong purring. She's always been there when I need some purrs.
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| Ara enjoying a cuddle with me. |
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
7-7-7 Challenge
The Challenge is to write down page 7, line 7, and 7 paragraphs therafter (or page 77, but I'm not that far in this work in progress yet...) So here it is. I call this my zombie story, that should give you some indication who the main character is. Or rather, what he is... or was. Or something.
“Turn?” I looked at her curiously. I didn’t doubt I would eat her. She did look very tasty.
“Turn me into... whatever you are.” She waved a hand in my general direction.
“What I am?” I frowned and looked at my hand again.
She kneeled again, just out of reach, “oh Almighty, you can not tell? You are no longer human. I don’t know what you are, but you...” She shuddered, “You eat people, you would kill me as you killed before.” She looked at the smoldering fire.
“I do not remember,” I said as soft as I could. I was getting used to speaking, forcing airs into my dry lungs and forcing air out across my vocal chords, but I still spoke rather loudly.
She sighed, a heavy drawn out sigh. I echoed it, mostly to get practice with such movements, they made me seem more human. I frowned. So I wasn’t human?
“By the Almighty, I do not know what I am supposed to do now,” she muttered softly.
“Turn?” I looked at her curiously. I didn’t doubt I would eat her. She did look very tasty.
“Turn me into... whatever you are.” She waved a hand in my general direction.
“What I am?” I frowned and looked at my hand again.
She kneeled again, just out of reach, “oh Almighty, you can not tell? You are no longer human. I don’t know what you are, but you...” She shuddered, “You eat people, you would kill me as you killed before.” She looked at the smoldering fire.
“I do not remember,” I said as soft as I could. I was getting used to speaking, forcing airs into my dry lungs and forcing air out across my vocal chords, but I still spoke rather loudly.
She sighed, a heavy drawn out sigh. I echoed it, mostly to get practice with such movements, they made me seem more human. I frowned. So I wasn’t human?
“By the Almighty, I do not know what I am supposed to do now,” she muttered softly.
Dreamtime Dreamscape: Artisan bread version
So last night I had another strange dream... I dreamed I was Spider-man, and yet I wasn't. I was at a mall, trying to defeat the bad guys, when my cover was going to be blown and they were going to learn it was me. I remember only bits and pieces of this part of the dream. Something about me zooming around as if I could fly. I was dressed like Spiderman, but I didn't have many web like powers, I could just climb on walls and stuff. The bad guys... there was something strange about them, but I can't remember what it was...
Also, I was going to college and I was late for my classes and I tried to explain that hey, I'm Spider-man, I should be allowed a little slack from college.
Well, college decided that being a superhero wasn't enough, and I had to prove that I was actually doing good work. So I (in full costume, including the mask) picked up some homeless guys the bad guys had hired to do their nasty work and told them I would get them a great job if they switched to my side.
The homeless men somehow didn't know I was Spider-man, even though I had on the mask, because I wore normal clothes. So anyway, I drove them to this remote house by a river that was totally in disrepair. Yet it was somehow an old school mill, complete with water wheel and grinding stone. The place was totally trashed, and the homeless men didn't believe in my vision, so I started cleaning the place up.
I went into this dark room of the mill that was covered in bird poo and went to the window and tried to open it up to get light into the room. The homeless guys were staring at me as if I were nuts, but I got the window partially open. An old expired can of tuna fish (I swear to goodness I made a mental note it was a tuna can) was in the way of the window. So I went eff it, and started tearing out the rotted slats of wood on the ceiling by climbing up the brick wall. Lots of spiders fell on top of me, yet I wasn't weirded out or grossed out by this. And I threw the slats from the ceiling (which looked like slats from an old plaster wall) into the river.
Somehow me climbing up the wall, pretending like I was some rock climber and not Spider-man convinced the homeless guys I was serious about this. And I was, somehow training these homeless guys to make bread was integral to defeating the bad guy, some guy who was a cross between Galactus and Magneto.
So then I totally had a video montage. Music played while I was shown snippets of the guys and I tearing down the walls, of me making money to pay for this venture by selling my belongings, and me getting them artisan wheat to grind up on the old fashioned mill, powered by the river. At one point the mill flooded, so I had a nice scene of me using some strange water power I didn't know I had to move the water away from the mill.
When they got their first batch of wheat milled, they added water and were so amazed it came out as pancake mix and they feasted on fancy stone ground wheat pancakes and it totally blew these guys away. I had a little scene where we were all bouncing down the road (me still with the Spider-man mask on) in a big blue truck with a huge old fashioned iron stove, the kinds from old mansions, bouncing in the back of it, and the homeless guys were being flung around like it was some carnival ride and they were having the time of their lives, so excited were they for this bouncing oven...
Next thing I know, somehow they are making loaf after loaf of rich, fancy breads and feeding it to their homeless buddies or making the rich pay good money for this bread, and this was financing my... whatever I was making... to defeat the Galactus/Magneto bad guy.
Then I woke up, very confused.
Also, I was going to college and I was late for my classes and I tried to explain that hey, I'm Spider-man, I should be allowed a little slack from college.
Well, college decided that being a superhero wasn't enough, and I had to prove that I was actually doing good work. So I (in full costume, including the mask) picked up some homeless guys the bad guys had hired to do their nasty work and told them I would get them a great job if they switched to my side.
The homeless men somehow didn't know I was Spider-man, even though I had on the mask, because I wore normal clothes. So anyway, I drove them to this remote house by a river that was totally in disrepair. Yet it was somehow an old school mill, complete with water wheel and grinding stone. The place was totally trashed, and the homeless men didn't believe in my vision, so I started cleaning the place up.
I went into this dark room of the mill that was covered in bird poo and went to the window and tried to open it up to get light into the room. The homeless guys were staring at me as if I were nuts, but I got the window partially open. An old expired can of tuna fish (I swear to goodness I made a mental note it was a tuna can) was in the way of the window. So I went eff it, and started tearing out the rotted slats of wood on the ceiling by climbing up the brick wall. Lots of spiders fell on top of me, yet I wasn't weirded out or grossed out by this. And I threw the slats from the ceiling (which looked like slats from an old plaster wall) into the river.
Somehow me climbing up the wall, pretending like I was some rock climber and not Spider-man convinced the homeless guys I was serious about this. And I was, somehow training these homeless guys to make bread was integral to defeating the bad guy, some guy who was a cross between Galactus and Magneto.
So then I totally had a video montage. Music played while I was shown snippets of the guys and I tearing down the walls, of me making money to pay for this venture by selling my belongings, and me getting them artisan wheat to grind up on the old fashioned mill, powered by the river. At one point the mill flooded, so I had a nice scene of me using some strange water power I didn't know I had to move the water away from the mill.
When they got their first batch of wheat milled, they added water and were so amazed it came out as pancake mix and they feasted on fancy stone ground wheat pancakes and it totally blew these guys away. I had a little scene where we were all bouncing down the road (me still with the Spider-man mask on) in a big blue truck with a huge old fashioned iron stove, the kinds from old mansions, bouncing in the back of it, and the homeless guys were being flung around like it was some carnival ride and they were having the time of their lives, so excited were they for this bouncing oven...
Next thing I know, somehow they are making loaf after loaf of rich, fancy breads and feeding it to their homeless buddies or making the rich pay good money for this bread, and this was financing my... whatever I was making... to defeat the Galactus/Magneto bad guy.
Then I woke up, very confused.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Dreamtime Dreamscape: Mutant edition
Here's one of my latest nap dreams...
This one is hard to remember in parts, so it might be disjointed. Most of this was in 3rd person, I watched the dream but was not actively involved and was not representing any particular person.
Somehow a bunch of mutant people were put into prison, which is where the dream starts out. All of the people were super powered, some in big ways like moving water, or freezing things, the usual, but some had very strange and somewhat pointless powers. One person could move cloth fibers, but only ones made of cotton and only when woven together. Someone else could do something with VHS tapes, I don't really remember.
Then all the mutants were loaded on a long bullet train to go to another facility. Only now they weren't prisoners, but normal people on this strange train. The train was attacked by some lady who could fly and freeze water and it was raining so she was doing really good at attacking the train, so some of the other mutants picked sides and a all out mutant war took place.
Now I focused on the female who could manipulate cotton, and came up with ways she could be of some use, and I kept arguing with my dream self if the woman would really be wiling to hurt people, if her actions were character or story driven, so I kept having to rewind the attack, then play it again with slightly different uses for the cotton manipulator depending on what kind of character development I wanted her to go through.
Well, from what I remember, she learned that she could make cotton threads really strong, so when parts of the train were blown up, she used the cotton fibers in the seams orange prison jumpsuits to jump out of the seams (undoing some of them, like along the pant leg or sleeve) to tie somehow around things on the broken parts of the train, then tie into the carpet, and hold the train together with a strange kind of cotton thread webbing.
When I had her be a little more agressive, she tightened the weave of the clothes the bad guys were wearing around their necks, to choke them.
I specifically thought "I don't like the cotton thread thing, it seems too... typical. 'I manipulate thread, thus I surround myself with living thread/hair! too common'"
That's why I put the "it has to be cotton woven into fabric" into her limitations, so she couldn't be a thread flinging mutant. So she started being more a backup helper. She stopped wounds from bleeding by tightening fabric around a wound, or helped move unconscious people up by moving the cotton weave on their clothes like snakes until they were out of danger...
I did the same to the winged freezing rain person as well for a while, then quite abruptly...
Huge cliffs and mountains, empty of people. Flying on the back of a dragon, I think. Typical mode of transportation between dreams for me. Because when I landed...
Same kind of universe. Mutants. Only there were only 4, and they were brothers. Everyone else on the same train was a normal person except two of the brothers, who were good, and the two attacking who were evil. The good two hadn't discovered their powers, but in the fight the evil brothers kinda coached them. Evil 1 had the power to drain water, Good 1 had the ability to make water. Evil 2 had the ability to change the past?... I think? Good 2 had the ability to change the future? Maybe... I don't remember exactly.
All I remember is their powers came out during times of high stress, and the evil brothers wanted to turn the good brothers to their side, but the good brothers ended up having to kill the two evil ones.
And because I wanted more drama, I made water be a big deal, there was a drought, so having a brother who could create water was a big deal, and he demonstrated this with a huge fountain that shows up sometimes in my dreams, it's kind of a swirling fountain with a zen like bonsai in the middle.
As I woke up, I saw the four circular sigils, one for each brother, change. The ones for the evil bothers were burned on this panel of dark wood and the good brothers remained, saddened greatly by the loss of their evil brothers.
Very long dream, kinda strange. I wish I remembered more about the brothers and their powers. There was something about how the two evil brothers found their powers that disturbed the nation they were princes of, but I can't remember how or why...
This one is hard to remember in parts, so it might be disjointed. Most of this was in 3rd person, I watched the dream but was not actively involved and was not representing any particular person.
Somehow a bunch of mutant people were put into prison, which is where the dream starts out. All of the people were super powered, some in big ways like moving water, or freezing things, the usual, but some had very strange and somewhat pointless powers. One person could move cloth fibers, but only ones made of cotton and only when woven together. Someone else could do something with VHS tapes, I don't really remember.
Then all the mutants were loaded on a long bullet train to go to another facility. Only now they weren't prisoners, but normal people on this strange train. The train was attacked by some lady who could fly and freeze water and it was raining so she was doing really good at attacking the train, so some of the other mutants picked sides and a all out mutant war took place.
Now I focused on the female who could manipulate cotton, and came up with ways she could be of some use, and I kept arguing with my dream self if the woman would really be wiling to hurt people, if her actions were character or story driven, so I kept having to rewind the attack, then play it again with slightly different uses for the cotton manipulator depending on what kind of character development I wanted her to go through.
Well, from what I remember, she learned that she could make cotton threads really strong, so when parts of the train were blown up, she used the cotton fibers in the seams orange prison jumpsuits to jump out of the seams (undoing some of them, like along the pant leg or sleeve) to tie somehow around things on the broken parts of the train, then tie into the carpet, and hold the train together with a strange kind of cotton thread webbing.
When I had her be a little more agressive, she tightened the weave of the clothes the bad guys were wearing around their necks, to choke them.
I specifically thought "I don't like the cotton thread thing, it seems too... typical. 'I manipulate thread, thus I surround myself with living thread/hair! too common'"
That's why I put the "it has to be cotton woven into fabric" into her limitations, so she couldn't be a thread flinging mutant. So she started being more a backup helper. She stopped wounds from bleeding by tightening fabric around a wound, or helped move unconscious people up by moving the cotton weave on their clothes like snakes until they were out of danger...
I did the same to the winged freezing rain person as well for a while, then quite abruptly...
Huge cliffs and mountains, empty of people. Flying on the back of a dragon, I think. Typical mode of transportation between dreams for me. Because when I landed...
Same kind of universe. Mutants. Only there were only 4, and they were brothers. Everyone else on the same train was a normal person except two of the brothers, who were good, and the two attacking who were evil. The good two hadn't discovered their powers, but in the fight the evil brothers kinda coached them. Evil 1 had the power to drain water, Good 1 had the ability to make water. Evil 2 had the ability to change the past?... I think? Good 2 had the ability to change the future? Maybe... I don't remember exactly.
All I remember is their powers came out during times of high stress, and the evil brothers wanted to turn the good brothers to their side, but the good brothers ended up having to kill the two evil ones.
And because I wanted more drama, I made water be a big deal, there was a drought, so having a brother who could create water was a big deal, and he demonstrated this with a huge fountain that shows up sometimes in my dreams, it's kind of a swirling fountain with a zen like bonsai in the middle.
As I woke up, I saw the four circular sigils, one for each brother, change. The ones for the evil bothers were burned on this panel of dark wood and the good brothers remained, saddened greatly by the loss of their evil brothers.
Very long dream, kinda strange. I wish I remembered more about the brothers and their powers. There was something about how the two evil brothers found their powers that disturbed the nation they were princes of, but I can't remember how or why...
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Writing Update
So it's been a while since I've posted much except for cat pictures. I figured it was time for a writing update!
Finished my cop short story! I've had a few people read it and they seem to like it. If anyone else would like to read it, please tell me. I'm debating if I should submit it for a competition, so I'm not going to post it online. I'm pretty proud of it, though.
Undead/Zombie story is up to 22k words. I've been primarily working on this story, learning how to write a story more slowly and with more thought than I did the National Novel Writing Month story. So it has gone more slowly, but I think the story is coming along nicely. I've had to do some pretty major re-writes early on, which made me lose about 10k words, but I'm hoping to use what I wrote later in the story if I can fit it back into it all.
The NaNoWriMo story, Balance/Planes, is still on the shelf. Once I get further or finish the Undead/Zombie story I do plan on editing it. I wasn't going to, but hubby has insisted I edit it because he really thinks I should. So I will. Maybe I can fix the story so I like it a lot more than I do now. I've learned quite a bit while working on the Zombie story, a lot about editing, so I think it would be good for me to go back and edit it. There are parts to the story I love, and parts I hate. But every writing blog I've read says the first draft is terrible, and a writer must pick themselves up and edit the terrible first draft, so that's what I will do.
I've got a third story in the bare bones stage, I'm calling it my Ghost story. Like I said, planning stages. But I've written bits of it here and there and have liked what I've gotten down, so I'll keep it around, lurking.
My goals are to finish the Zombie story, edit Planes, and work in some flash fiction if I can. We shall see what I can get out there with the time I have.
Finished my cop short story! I've had a few people read it and they seem to like it. If anyone else would like to read it, please tell me. I'm debating if I should submit it for a competition, so I'm not going to post it online. I'm pretty proud of it, though.
Undead/Zombie story is up to 22k words. I've been primarily working on this story, learning how to write a story more slowly and with more thought than I did the National Novel Writing Month story. So it has gone more slowly, but I think the story is coming along nicely. I've had to do some pretty major re-writes early on, which made me lose about 10k words, but I'm hoping to use what I wrote later in the story if I can fit it back into it all.
The NaNoWriMo story, Balance/Planes, is still on the shelf. Once I get further or finish the Undead/Zombie story I do plan on editing it. I wasn't going to, but hubby has insisted I edit it because he really thinks I should. So I will. Maybe I can fix the story so I like it a lot more than I do now. I've learned quite a bit while working on the Zombie story, a lot about editing, so I think it would be good for me to go back and edit it. There are parts to the story I love, and parts I hate. But every writing blog I've read says the first draft is terrible, and a writer must pick themselves up and edit the terrible first draft, so that's what I will do.
I've got a third story in the bare bones stage, I'm calling it my Ghost story. Like I said, planning stages. But I've written bits of it here and there and have liked what I've gotten down, so I'll keep it around, lurking.
My goals are to finish the Zombie story, edit Planes, and work in some flash fiction if I can. We shall see what I can get out there with the time I have.
Tugboat Cheribears!
Cheri loves her boxes, she sits in them like they're her tugboat, so I drew what she sees. Toot toot!
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| Cheri's Tugboat |
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