Quick but Fantastic post
Posted by mcummings
Don’t have time to labor over a long, thought out post, so the quickest of recaps. Saturday night was more fantastic than I could have dreamed. I could say it was the food, which was great, or the Ace (apple) Pear cider, which was absolutely divine, but lets face it, it was all the company 
If that’s what ten years looks like, we need to A) celebrate it more often and B) I cannot wait to see what the next anniversary brings. We even managed to stop by the church we got married in, which apparently is being replaced with a bakery (same building, different mission in life).
On the writing front, the mental blockade has been broken. Just over 2000 words written today, and I’ve gone ahead and ported everything into yWriter, which is my way of saying I’m ready to take it seriously (and track it).
w00t for the first decent Monday in a while!
Ten years
Posted by mcummings
Before you start reading – I actually wrote this early this morning, before launching off on a day of errand running. My bride read it and agreed it was ok, but had this to say: “Man, we’re boring people…”
Ah, yes.
Yesterday at about 2, 2:30 in the afternoon, we marked ten years of marriage. If you saw my twitter/facebook feed yesterday, you saw me thank Kim for putting up with me, and I stand by that. I'm cranky, with occasional bouts of grouchiness. I'm needy, and have unquenchable, unrealistic goals.
Yep. I'm a man.
I don't want to mislead you, especially if you've yet to take the plunge. Its not perfect. We don't always agree. We definitely don't see eye to eye all the time. But I've always stuck with a simple rule:
Never go to bed angry.
And believe it or not, I think its this simple rule that has been the foundation of a happy marriage. If you struggle and keep true to the rule, you can't hold a grudge. How do you stay mad at someone only in spurts? You don't.
And man, do I love her.
Last night, we had potstickers and fresh (fresh!) sushi (maki rolls). Why, we ordered so much we have enough left over for a lunchtime feast Kim isn't the biggest maki fan, but was willing and happy to share some shrimp tempura and let me have some dragon roll. Tonight, one of my bestest friends (no favors called in, just had to ask) will watch the girls from about 4:30 until whenever Kim and I make it home. You have to understand, this is like the first time we've gone out for a night time date in years. We've had a few afternoons free in the last few years, don't get me wrong, but this is our first prime time outing in years. Alone. As adults.
As an interesting sidebar, the same bestest friend was not only there for our wedding, but at the time lived in an apartment across the street. When we got home from the reception (wild party animals that we were), she came over, had pizza with us, and helped us sort through the wedding presents. Pretty ironic, then, that ten years later, she's going to have pizza with our girls while we celebrate. OK, maybe not movie script romance for a wedding night, but reality is that after standing around all day in hot, heavy clothing, all you want to do is veg out and cool off.
Now tonight, we aren't going to a fancy, expensive restaurant. Oh, we had considered it, believe me. We scoured around the Fredneck area digs, looking for somewhere with a menu that appealed, budget no obstacle. Mostly. The thing is, we realized that we weren't interested in some kind of high class, painting the town kind of evening. All we wanted is to go out and have some fun.
With three girls under the age of ten (or eight), and having very limited babysitter resources, we don't get to go out too much. And with our youngest's allergies, a restaurant must be able to not only provide fare for our our whole disjointed family, but not make one of our children severely ill or worse. Yeah, believe it or not, not too many places fit that bill, and so we don't get to try too much unless they deliver.
So back to tonight. We're going to the Capital Ale House. A beergarden with an impressive menu of German and Americana (all in the beergarden vein). We're not dressing up, we don't have reservations, and we don't have a plan. We're just going out to have some fun and enjoy each
others company.
Because you know what? After ten years of marriage, I still love spending time with my wife. The things she says put me in stitches. Her observations are startling and insightful. People use that trite
expression "you complete me," or "she's my better half," but I feel like I'm one of the only people that actually knows what that means. She's the part of me that I didn't know I was missing, the part of me that I couldn't appreciate until it was there.
Love you, babe. A lot.
And Another Week Goes By [Part 2]
Posted by mcummings
And then, there's the writing update. I considered making this one long blog post, but then I considered you, the reader. And you, the reader reading over the reader's shoulder. Some will care more for part 1 than part 2; others won't care for either and just never updated your RSS feeds when I left Gentoo. These things happen.
The good news [quick summary of Part 1 - had a flu/fever combo for a week, last week was spent recovering from the recovery] is the fire still burns bright on this story. I think it has really helped that I spent all of that time working on outlines and such - I have enough material to remind me of where I was going, what I was doing, and what I intended to do, plus a week (really two) of fermentation for it to blossom in my head. Granted, the new addition to our family household (XBOX) is a true lure away from the keyboard, but I did manage to knock out a few thousand words between epic battles in Star Ocean this weekend.
One thing that has really helped with this, that I began back at the start of April, was I started interviewing myself. I'm sure this is a documented technique somewhere, but to be frank, I just made it up as I was going. The gist is simple: ask myself questions as if the novel was in its final draft, and see what kind of answers I come up with. I must still be feeling a little light headed, because I'm going to paste a bit of that here so you can see how it works (and how vague I can be even answering myself). I suggest that this is just book one in this quote, but I've since reconsidered that - now I just want to see where it goes, try and encompass the whole story in one novel, and if I need to cut it up later, so be it. I ended up pasting more below than I had intended to start off with, but one paste demanded another. This isn't all of it, but it gives you an idea of my thoughts so far on the novel.
So, one of the concepts for this book is the idea that there are seasons of magic (Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn), so I asked myself:
What's the result of the coming season of magic?
One answer to this is that object and places that had lain dormant for thousands of years come back to life. Almost like after a black out - you get used to the silence, the darkness, the lack of light, then suddenly the world starts making noise again, the white noise is back, lights are blinking. My thought is that there are a few hints of this, and then pow, Winter is over. But I'd like to give a few chapters of life in Winter before turning the power on.
Another thing to ponder is besides the gadgets and powers, what lay dormant without the magic? The Pools of Dreaming have survived on their backup power for thousands of years. What do they usher in now? I have a notion of an Old Enemy awakening, but that's almost trite. Everyone has the Ancient Enemy suddenly returned. But is that staple of fantasy a bad thing? Maybe they slumber between the seasons. Horrific creatures, terrors in the night kind of thing. No elven clan for this lot; no, these are pure creatures of consumption and destruction. A horror novel burried in the middle of this fantasy. Going with that thought, expanded a little in the section above about the Sceptered Sword, treat this as book 1 of a potential series. Our intrepid heroes fight back this plague of terror, this awakening of ancient evils and horrors long forgotten. But this is only Spring. What comes with Summer??? And what about the residents of the homeland?
And what else came to life?
What, really, are the Dreaming Pools? And how do they fit in as the climax of the novel?
Well, the Dreaming Pools are like these batteries, storing "magical" energy during the Winter season. Contact with the skin of an Oracle gives the Oracle the ability to prophesize, but they are more than that. In the Spring season, they draw the terrors to them.
What about the terrors of Spring?
In the Winter, these horrific creatures lay dormant in slumber, hibernating if you will. They are mindless, single purpose creations. They rent the flesh of the living, but their hunger is only put to rest by consuming magic. The Dreaming Pools draw them - in ancient times, they were drawn to the Pools. They can only breed at places like the Pools - hint that there are other Dreaming Pools, this is just the closest one to our cast.
Interesting to note that my subconscious states that these creatures are creations. Because that suggests another question to ask myself:
What comes with Summer?
Summer brings with it great power for those that can wield it. But it also brings with it the creators of the Terrors. The Terrors were created to cleanse the world after a Winter's sleep for the masters. The terrors are the ultimate biological weapon. These Masters need a name, by the way.
Is it really magic? What's the system for the magic? Can anyone do it?
Magic is just a good place holder for it for now. It needs a real name, but all of the ones that come to mind are in turn borrowed from other series. I would lean towards the weave, but that's too simple a name. It would be nifty if I could find a translation of weave or weaver in Sumerian or Sandskrit, something that has the same connotations but won't be as readily obvious.
Taking the last question first, no, not anyone can do it. There are aids to being able to do it, artifacts created by past civilisations that enhance or focus an individuals power. But if you are completely unable to tap this power naturally, at all, no instrument can give you the power.
As for its nature? I'm thinking its more of like electricity. My original vision, and briefly touched on with the orrery in the scene I've written between Sidihar and the Master Practical, is that there are zones, if you will, in the Universe where the laws of physics are different. As the planet (hmmm...sidebar, what is the name of our planet?) orbits its star, and that star in turn orbits in its local cluster, it passes through one of these zones. Not yearly, but over the course of aeons it will pass in and out of the zone. Sometimes this is a quick transition, a brief season and then a return to "normal." At other times, the zone that it passes through is huge and it takes centuries, even aeons, for the sun and our unnamed planet to pass completely through it. The zones themselves are not black and white, which is why we have seasons - Winter, there is no magic; Spring, we begin passing through the border of a zone and magic begins to work; Summer, full force magic is in effect; Autumn, passing through the border again. The biggest distinction between Spring and Autumn, in addition to some borders being "thinner" than others, is that after a Spring and Summer of magic, there is enough residual energy left in an Autumn that things that might not have worked in Spring will continue to function for a while. By the time we return to a full Winter, only those things that could retain their energy, like the Dreaming Pools, still have enough energy to be of use. Humans can channel (but can't use that word, thanks to WOT) this energy, but don't generally have the capacity to retain it in Winter. What then of the Oracles? Their key is in their tattoos, which are etched into the flesh with a solution of Dreaming Pool liquid - they literally etch the magic into their bodies.
[Adding on the commute home] This practice of creating tattoos using the liquid of the Dreaming Pools, I imagine, could be used against the Oracles by the terrors and their masters. Imagine, if these creatures are capable of the energy from a living creature with talent, what they would do to a person with power etched into their flesh? It'd be like catnip, beyond an aphrodisiac, a compelling and overwhelming lure.
Sure, there's a bit of ego in interviewing yourself, but it seems to be a really good tool for fleshing out what's hidden in your subconscious about a story. I didn't realize I knew the answer to some of these questions until I started asking myself. Now, if only writing a novel came as easily as writing a blog post, I'd be all set
And Another Week Goes By [Part 1]
Posted by mcummings
Well, I just can't seem to get back into the swing of things these days. Two weeks ago, I began my hiatus with a rollicking good time by having a flu/fever combo that had me on my back, burning up and moaning to Saint Wife nonstop (for her part, she lived up to the title of Saint by not only taking care of me, but also by doing it with a warm smile). Following that (out of work for a week, out of commission to boot), I had a secondary bacterial infection that can best be summed up as a chest cold with complications. Nothing anti-biotics couldn't cure, eventually, once I got over my dour outlook and started taking them.
In my free time, I tried rebuilding an old laptop as an Ubuntu desktop, with aspirations of having a sleek, light weight writing platform with a nice big keyboard and small desktop real estate. That failed. So I tried Debian - that installed, but then kept crashing. Being stubborn, I wrestled with Ubuntu for another week (better hardware detection among other things) before I finally got it to install, only to realize towards the end that the problem had nothing to do with the operating system. At some point in the last seven or so years of this laptop's tenure in our home, I've pushed it to the edge just one too many times it appears. Alas, I finally threw in the towel this weekend when I was able to confirm that its the CPU that's getting flaky, not the OS I'm trying to cram on top of it.
Meanwhile, in the spinning world around me, everyone but Katy has now been sick with what I had, with the added bonus that Anna has a double ear infection tacked on as of late last week. Always the medical drama, isn't it?
And there, rather more succinctly than I had anticipated, is my personal life for the last two weeks. Now on to Part 2 of this post, chiefly a lamentation about how little I've accomplished in writing, but how cool the stuff I have done is
Brief Musical Interlude
Posted by mcummings
I am horribly overdue for some updates on life and writing, on the joys of feverish ramblings, and the commitment to put a story out there that you all would want to read (assuming you're in a mood for something a little campy/fantasy, of course).
Right now, though, isn't yet the time, not until the migraine passes.
This past Friday, Kim and I watched this song as it was originally aired, so I thought it only fitting to share this rendition with the masses at large. As Walsh said, next time we should go to the crappy town where I'm a hero! Ladies, Gentlemen, Companions, and Reavers, the BrownCoats!