Earlier today I figured that I was about 15 thousand words behind where I should be. The way to catch up is almost certainly not to have a day with fewer than a thousand words with more than a few of them focusing mainly on cookbooks. That said, given that I've had days go by with no words at all it's clearly better than the nothing that could have been. As a result I'm not sure how I should feel about this.
-Bad Novel, Part I-lost-count-ages-ago
The revelation wasn't as earth shattering as I would have imagined. I did not find myself wondering, "What else is real?" I was not suddenly pouring over the internet looking for information on the migrations of UFOs and the best way to defend against chupacabra attack. I did not suddenly believe in vampires. The knowledge that there were werewolves proved just as easy to assimilate as the knowledge that there was a talking cat. It wasn't a brave new world that opened up before me, it was the same old world, just with werewolves.
When I got home life went on as normal. Jonas' food bowl needed to be refilled, he'd left the TV on, I turned it off, I unplugged the Christmas tree, and went to bed. I slept as I normally would. Got up the next morning, turned on the TV, there was discussion about the new decade, which seemed just like the old decade. If you even considered it a new decade. Apparently there was some kind of internet holy war about whether the year should be called twenty ten or two thousand and ten, which completely failed to address the point that the proper name was two thousand ten, with no "and."
I wasn't even thinking about werewolves, I was thinking about the fact that people make a big deal over the new year when there's no reason to. That did eventually bring me back to werewolves because I was forced to admit that meeting them had probably been my most impressive new year ever. Who needs a ball dropping in Time Square when you can have werewolves? Not that I'd ever been in Time Square come new year. I'd just watched it on TV.
Jonas woke up around ten, walked in, clawed the chair, and finally asked, "So did you find the werewolves."
"Yup."
"That's nice." He went back to destroying the poor unfortunate recliner.
Like I said, the revelation that werewolves exist changes very little. Or Jonas already knew. But the first is more likely.
After getting fed up the with the news and the fact that I had several hundred channels of satellite television and there was nothing interesting on any of them, I got up and looked through books. I had a surprisingly large number of cookbooks. This was largely because each of them had one or two things I liked. Also, I never got rid of them, at least that was what I gathered from the fact that, atop the top microwave, there was a copy of of The Dehydrator Cookbook in spite of me having no memories of ever owning a dehydrator.
The cookbooks presented an intriguing mystery. How on earth did I end up with so many without ever noticing it until that moment? Did their usefulness really merit the amount of space they took up? When was the last time I used one? Most of all, how hard would it be to find a recipe that made having cookbooks seem worthwhile?
I grabbed a stack of them and went to the couch. I quickly found The Official Star Trek Cooking Manual. A mass market paperback that was older than I was it's cover was bent and slightly ripped, and it's pages were yellowed. It was a thing to be handled with care and treasured. I moved through the pages slowly. Passed the dishes of various alien species, passed instructions on how to make oil lamps out of tangerines, passed the best chicken sandwich of all time (and the finest meal a tribble ever had) and finally reached the apple omelet. Whereupon my faith that I could prove to the werewolf that civilization was useful was reaffirmed.
I put the cookbooks back, convinced of their utility, made up a shopping list, and passed the time watching movies. Jonas joined me, but completely ignored the movies. When the sun had run its course, and darkness fell I prepared to journey to the place in the woods where the werewolves gathered.
Finding the way was harder on my own. I won't say all trees look the same, they don't, but like the waves on the ocean they sort of blend together in your mind so that it can be hard to distinguish one from the next after looking away for a moment. Or a twenty four hour period, as the case may be. After wandering lost in the woods for what seemed like at least three weeks, but was really probably closer to that many hours, I did eventually stumble within sight of firelight.
Once I saw that making it the rest of the way was pretty easy. Felicia was the only werewolf near the fire, she was sitting on the log with Amy. The rest were nowhere in evidence, meaning I still had no idea what four of them even looked like. As I approached Amy was explaining her dinger. She had it out and open, with the tablet on Felicia's lap.
"Normally I just have it hooked up to the bells, but it was pretty much off the chart. With this," she pointed to the tablet, "I can redefine the chart as necessary. Right now it'd be dinging as fast as it could, there'd be no way to tell where was hotter and colder. But with it in graph form," she moved the dinger's antenna closer to Felicia then back to where it had been, "see?"
"That's amazing," Felicia said. I couldn't see the tablet, but I had to agree. The dinger was amazing. Absurd, but undoubtedly amazing. It had led us to werewolves after all. "So what exactly does it pick up on?"
"Weirdness," I said. "Hi, by the way."
I'm thinking of writing a novel.
Moderators: Master_Kale, TNM Team
-
chris the cynic
- Human Encyclopaedia
- Posts: 2207
- Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 9:50 pm
-
chris the cynic
- Human Encyclopaedia
- Posts: 2207
- Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 9:50 pm
Re: I'm thinking of writing a novel.
Discussions about Avatar have brought to the forefront of my mind that description is the shiny of writing. The special effects in Avatar range from setting to expressions on the character's faces. Alien pores and ferns, and the shape of whatever you may see. If someone gets shot you've got a special effect for that, be it makeup or CGI. If someone is happy there's a brand new never before made way to translate the acting into a giant blue alien.
No one in Avatar turns into a wolf, but if they did someone in the effects department could handle that. Maybe they'd have an entire team work on it, I know not. They wouldn't need to find the words to describe it, they could literally show and not tell. Perhaps more importantly, they could show it to you all at once. They wouldn't have the plod through the transformation one word at a time all the while thinking things like, "Do I stick with the face or do the fur now? When am I going to get the feet in? What about the tail? How the hell do you even describe the feet? I know what it looks like, but how do I make someone else know what it looks like?"
Either way, description = the shiny bits (+ the acting + the non-shiny parts of set design and costume + more or less everything else that matters.) And description is where I'm having my greatest difficulty, well, description and figuring out the plot.
-
- Bad Novel Part N
I sat down on the log watched as the conversation shift from Amy's equipment to Felicia's species. Amy took notes in a spiral bound notebook. First there was a Felicia told a brief bit about werewolves, which was mostly negative information. Felcia didn't know where they came from, didn't know why people thought silver would hurt them more than stainless steel, didn't know where the idea they transformed involuntary on the full moon originated and didn't know why anyone would assume it was infectious.
The various didn't knows out of the way she stood up and showed Amy the transformation, in full, in the firelight. And slowly at that. Her mouth and chin pushed forward, the shape of her nose blending into the forming muzzle as it turned black. Fur grew out of her skin, covering her face in short white and gray fur. Her clothing blended into her emerging fur, the same whites and grays as her face, but longer. Her hair shortened and its color changed until it became indistinguishable from the fur that covered the rest of her body. Her ears moved. By the time they reached their new homes on the top of her head any resemblance to human ears was gone.
She a bit grew taller, her feet stretched, ankle lifting off the ground until most of what was once her foot became part of her leg, and only her toes remaining on the ground to form a paw. The muscles on her arms and legs grew. Claws projected from the tips of her fingers.
She paused here for a moment, Amy jotting down notes as quick as she could.
When the pause was over her thumbs began to recede fading into the side of her hand until they became useless looking dewclaws. Her fingers shortened until her hands were paws. She dropped onto all fours. This was the first time I noticed her tail. Her hind legs shortened. Soon she was shaped like a normal wolf, but larger. Again there was a pause in the changes.
After we'd gotten a good look at this form, she changed again. This time her shape remained the same. Also, she didn't remain still this time, she paced in a circle and as she did she shrank. Pounds simply disappeared, her body became shorter, and in the end she was the indistinguishable from an ordinary wolf in size as well as shape.
"I can stop it at any point along the way, and no, it doesn't hurt at all." And so there she was, a talking wolf.
Amy asked, "Can I pet you."
Felicia considered that for a moment, then shook her head. "I'd rather you didn't." With that she started growing larger, quickly reached the largest size she'd been, reared up onto her hind legs, and was back to being a human within a matter of seconds. "The weird thing is that the two most useless forms, completely human and completely wolf, are the ones that feel the most natural."
"How is it that your clothing stays with you?" I asked.
"I just gained a hundred pounds out of thin air and then sent it back to the nowhere whence it came and you're wondering about my clothes?"
I shrugged. "I figure that if I were a werewolf violating the laws of thermodynamics wouldn't bother me much, the possibility of ending up naked as a result would. So looking at it that way ... the clothing thing is more impressive."
"Well, I have no idea. It works that way' it's always worked that way. I do know that if a werewolf has a living thing, like a gerbil, in her pocket it won't disappear with her clothing."
"You changed into a wolf with a gerbil in your pocket?" Amy asked.
"Not me; Fabian's cousin's daughter. Poor little Gerbie found himself in free-fall with the most surprised look on his face. Then he ran away and we spent the better part of an hour catching him again."
Amy wrote that in he notebook. Probably not the part about it taking an hour to find the gerbil though. When she finished writing she asked, "So the full moon really doesn't have any pull on you at all?"
"I don't know. It's fun to howl at."
"I thought wolves didn't really do that," Amy said.
"They don't. Only werewolves howl at the moon. Ordinary wolves don't really care about it. They have no idea that howling at the moon could be a pastime."
"Can you talk to wolves?" I asked.
"I can communicate with them, but so could you if you took the time to learn. I wouldn't call it talking. Wolves don't have a language as such. That's not say it's unsophisticated, but it's not the same as talking."
Amy asked, "How do your senses change as you, uh, change?"
Felicia was silent for a time, "Imagine that you were wearing heavy duty earmuffs and a cold or something had made you lose your sense of smell almost entirely. That's what being human is like. And human night vision is atrocious. I mean no offense, it just is. On the other hand, the more human I am the better I can see color, and the better I can see at a distance. Sitting by the fire isn't the same when the colors are dulled."
Amy recorded all of this in her notebook.
Something occurred to me, "It doesn't bother you?" That clearly wasn't descriptive enough because there was a distinct lack of comprehension in her eyes. I took a moment to try to find the right word. I thought I found it, "Us …" and I lost it again. I made somewhat useless and very vague gestures. Then I found it again, "gawking."
"No. Not a bit." She scratched her head. "Someone told me that you never enjoy your hometown more than when you travel it with a tourist. I think this is kind of like that. Being a werewolf hasn't seemed this interesting in … ever."
Try as I might to picture the boring life of a werewolf, I couldn't. I had trouble imagining a world in which one woke up in the morning with the knowledge that at any time for any reason he or she could change into a wolf and didn't find that interesting. I tried to think of something to compare it to, something I took for granted, but nothing I could come up with was remotely equal to the display Felicia had just put on.
Felicia went on to change and let Amy measure various parts of her. Her jaw, her hands, her claws, her whatever you call the part of a wolf that would be a foot on a person but is clearly part of the leg on a wolf because it doesn't come close to touching the ground. And so forth. Just about every part of Felicia was measured at various stages of transformation. I've no idea how she didn't get fed up and decide to eat Amy and I after the first five minutes.
No one in Avatar turns into a wolf, but if they did someone in the effects department could handle that. Maybe they'd have an entire team work on it, I know not. They wouldn't need to find the words to describe it, they could literally show and not tell. Perhaps more importantly, they could show it to you all at once. They wouldn't have the plod through the transformation one word at a time all the while thinking things like, "Do I stick with the face or do the fur now? When am I going to get the feet in? What about the tail? How the hell do you even describe the feet? I know what it looks like, but how do I make someone else know what it looks like?"
Either way, description = the shiny bits (+ the acting + the non-shiny parts of set design and costume + more or less everything else that matters.) And description is where I'm having my greatest difficulty, well, description and figuring out the plot.
-
- Bad Novel Part N
I sat down on the log watched as the conversation shift from Amy's equipment to Felicia's species. Amy took notes in a spiral bound notebook. First there was a Felicia told a brief bit about werewolves, which was mostly negative information. Felcia didn't know where they came from, didn't know why people thought silver would hurt them more than stainless steel, didn't know where the idea they transformed involuntary on the full moon originated and didn't know why anyone would assume it was infectious.
The various didn't knows out of the way she stood up and showed Amy the transformation, in full, in the firelight. And slowly at that. Her mouth and chin pushed forward, the shape of her nose blending into the forming muzzle as it turned black. Fur grew out of her skin, covering her face in short white and gray fur. Her clothing blended into her emerging fur, the same whites and grays as her face, but longer. Her hair shortened and its color changed until it became indistinguishable from the fur that covered the rest of her body. Her ears moved. By the time they reached their new homes on the top of her head any resemblance to human ears was gone.
She a bit grew taller, her feet stretched, ankle lifting off the ground until most of what was once her foot became part of her leg, and only her toes remaining on the ground to form a paw. The muscles on her arms and legs grew. Claws projected from the tips of her fingers.
She paused here for a moment, Amy jotting down notes as quick as she could.
When the pause was over her thumbs began to recede fading into the side of her hand until they became useless looking dewclaws. Her fingers shortened until her hands were paws. She dropped onto all fours. This was the first time I noticed her tail. Her hind legs shortened. Soon she was shaped like a normal wolf, but larger. Again there was a pause in the changes.
After we'd gotten a good look at this form, she changed again. This time her shape remained the same. Also, she didn't remain still this time, she paced in a circle and as she did she shrank. Pounds simply disappeared, her body became shorter, and in the end she was the indistinguishable from an ordinary wolf in size as well as shape.
"I can stop it at any point along the way, and no, it doesn't hurt at all." And so there she was, a talking wolf.
Amy asked, "Can I pet you."
Felicia considered that for a moment, then shook her head. "I'd rather you didn't." With that she started growing larger, quickly reached the largest size she'd been, reared up onto her hind legs, and was back to being a human within a matter of seconds. "The weird thing is that the two most useless forms, completely human and completely wolf, are the ones that feel the most natural."
"How is it that your clothing stays with you?" I asked.
"I just gained a hundred pounds out of thin air and then sent it back to the nowhere whence it came and you're wondering about my clothes?"
I shrugged. "I figure that if I were a werewolf violating the laws of thermodynamics wouldn't bother me much, the possibility of ending up naked as a result would. So looking at it that way ... the clothing thing is more impressive."
"Well, I have no idea. It works that way' it's always worked that way. I do know that if a werewolf has a living thing, like a gerbil, in her pocket it won't disappear with her clothing."
"You changed into a wolf with a gerbil in your pocket?" Amy asked.
"Not me; Fabian's cousin's daughter. Poor little Gerbie found himself in free-fall with the most surprised look on his face. Then he ran away and we spent the better part of an hour catching him again."
Amy wrote that in he notebook. Probably not the part about it taking an hour to find the gerbil though. When she finished writing she asked, "So the full moon really doesn't have any pull on you at all?"
"I don't know. It's fun to howl at."
"I thought wolves didn't really do that," Amy said.
"They don't. Only werewolves howl at the moon. Ordinary wolves don't really care about it. They have no idea that howling at the moon could be a pastime."
"Can you talk to wolves?" I asked.
"I can communicate with them, but so could you if you took the time to learn. I wouldn't call it talking. Wolves don't have a language as such. That's not say it's unsophisticated, but it's not the same as talking."
Amy asked, "How do your senses change as you, uh, change?"
Felicia was silent for a time, "Imagine that you were wearing heavy duty earmuffs and a cold or something had made you lose your sense of smell almost entirely. That's what being human is like. And human night vision is atrocious. I mean no offense, it just is. On the other hand, the more human I am the better I can see color, and the better I can see at a distance. Sitting by the fire isn't the same when the colors are dulled."
Amy recorded all of this in her notebook.
Something occurred to me, "It doesn't bother you?" That clearly wasn't descriptive enough because there was a distinct lack of comprehension in her eyes. I took a moment to try to find the right word. I thought I found it, "Us …" and I lost it again. I made somewhat useless and very vague gestures. Then I found it again, "gawking."
"No. Not a bit." She scratched her head. "Someone told me that you never enjoy your hometown more than when you travel it with a tourist. I think this is kind of like that. Being a werewolf hasn't seemed this interesting in … ever."
Try as I might to picture the boring life of a werewolf, I couldn't. I had trouble imagining a world in which one woke up in the morning with the knowledge that at any time for any reason he or she could change into a wolf and didn't find that interesting. I tried to think of something to compare it to, something I took for granted, but nothing I could come up with was remotely equal to the display Felicia had just put on.
Felicia went on to change and let Amy measure various parts of her. Her jaw, her hands, her claws, her whatever you call the part of a wolf that would be a foot on a person but is clearly part of the leg on a wolf because it doesn't come close to touching the ground. And so forth. Just about every part of Felicia was measured at various stages of transformation. I've no idea how she didn't get fed up and decide to eat Amy and I after the first five minutes.
Re: I'm thinking of writing a novel.
The parts describing the transformation were descriptive enough imo. Another charming chapter, and as my personal guage of enjoying a read is in the easiness of reading, I can say it was easy to read as well.
Growing old is inevitable.......Growing up is optional
-
chris the cynic
- Human Encyclopaedia
- Posts: 2207
- Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 9:50 pm
Re: I'm thinking of writing a novel.
The plan was to write more than this, and move beyond the narrator's defense of civilization into the next bit. I have only vague ideas of what the next bit it, but I do know enough to movie into the beginning of it. Unfortunately things came up, and I didn't make it that far.
So, instead what you get is an update that consists entirely of the narrator defending civilization. In his own peculiar way. Enjoy.
- Bad Novel Part N+1
Fabian was willing to let me try to prove civilization was useful. His willingness manifested itself in the form of following me around listening to what I said without saying anything. That kind of silence can be disturbing, but it was probably better than having him offer counter arguments as I was completely unprepared for that.
I led Fabian into a local supermarket. As with most supermarkets the produce was right inside the front door. A rainbow of fruit that most people almost certainly fail to appreciate. "You want to see the utility of civilization? Take a look around." I pointed, to the gala apples, "Apples in the dead of winter: ninety-nine cents a pound." There was something that seemed wrong with that. I stared at the price in silence and thought about it. An unpleasant truth sank in, "Which is sixteen cents more than I expected. I missed the damn sale." I grabbed a three pound bag anyway, then found something else to point at, "Banana's 49 cents a pound. Here." I don't actually know where banana's are grown, but I do know that it is somewhere in the massive region unofficially known as, 'not remotely near here.' We rounded a fruit stand and I had something new to point at. "Oranges as well, seven ninety-nine for a bag of," the bag didn't say so I had to count, "eleven." That didn't sound right so I counted again. It really was eleven. Who puts eleven oranges in a bag? "Eleven.
"And it isn't just fruit. If I want to, I can write a a letter and have delivered to someone in the middle of nowhere Montana for 44 cents. Or the backwoods of Alaska for the same price. Now 44 cents might sound like a lot when you consider that you can almost buy a pound of bananas for that, but think about how much it would cost to have that same letter delivered to the Alaskan frontier without civilization.
"First you'd need to find a messenger willing to make the trip. Then you need transportation. I haven't checked recently but I think the cost of a horse or a donkey is a lot higher than a pound of fruit. Planes are right out without civilization to bring you the fuel and maintain the runways. If you couldn't find one person to make the entire trek you'd need to set up some kind of relay, paying each messenger along the way, and all of this without civilization to help you call ahead.
"Now you might say- Hey! Mineolas two for a dollar." I have no idea what I was going to say he might say. Bagged two mineolas an put them in the cart. "Anyway, I hope you like fruit. It was either bring you here or bring you to a library." Fabian rolled his eyes. "Don't dismiss libraries. Don't you dare. We can go to one right now and find out how to build a steam engine or a wind turbine or whatever we want. And if they don't have the exact 'how to build a steam engine' book we want they will have it shipped in from another library just so we can have a look. All of this free of charge."
Fabian looked unimpressed.
"Come on, we're making apple omelets, we need eggs and cinnamon."
He asked, "Apple omelets?" as if I had just said we were making dragon burgers with a side of green eggs and ham. Those two words were the only ones he spoke in the supermarket.
"Yes. The cinnamon is this way," I led him to the cinnamon and pointed out that, while I wasn't sure what form cinnamon naturally occurred in I was fairly sure that that form was not a finely ground powder in a convenient bottle. I likewise pointed out that I, a person without a yard and thus no way to support a chicken, found the availability of eggs useful.
I checked out and walked home with Fabian, commenting on the utility of streetlights on the way. I led him up to my apartment, and showed what I consider admirable restraint in not starting a lecture on the power grid when I switched on the lights.
Jonas came over to get a closer look at Fabian and asked, "Who's this then?"
"Good god, the cat can talk!"
"Good god, the random person can state the obvious," Jonas said.
I introduced them to each other by saying, "Werewolf, talking cat. Talking cat, werewolf." Jonas sniffed Fabian and then walked away. He went to sleep atop a pile of my clothes I had left on the dryer. I led Fabian to the kitchen where I gathered ingredients and tools together.
When I grabbed the fry pan I held it up and said, "This is stainless steel, I know nothing about mining or smelting. There is neither mine nor smelting place near here. At least I think there isn't a smelting place. I'm sure about the mine thing." I showed him the cookbook and said, "If you don't think modern printing is amazing, that's fine. But if you think that the move from having to copy everything by hand wasn't useful you're crazy. Moveable type and offset printing both brought to us by civilization."
Then came the apple peeler. It was a fairly standard, metal construction, the main body painted red, the base was a black suction cup, the shaft and the fork that held the apples were some type of silver metal, I really had no idea which, the crank had a simple plastic handle. On the other end the removable corer-slicer was screwed into place next to the spring loaded peeling bit. It was basic. It was utilitarian. It was a thing of beauty. I picked it up and showed it to him. "If you cannot see that this is awesome, there is something wrong with you. You may be beyond all help."
I put it down, stuck an apple on it, then peeled sliced and cored the apple in about a second. Maybe less. "Ok, I'm going to put all of this together, you don't need to watch. You're probably sick of me by now anyway. Have a seat," I pointed to the couch, "I'll put something on for you." I looked through the DVDs I had. I ruled out anything that took very long, which effectively eliminated all of my first thoughts. Serenity, movie or episode, was out. Battlestar Galactica started with a six hour miniseries. Doctor Strangelove runs for 93 minutes. My options were limited.
I put on a recording of a John Oliver stand up thing called Terrifying Times. It was probably not the best thing to do when trying to convince someone of the positives of civilization. Discussion of George W. Bush, inflatable barbeques, and Oreo pizzas does not really support the idea civilization produces useful things. It was hilarious though, and Fabian laughed.
I peeled the apples and put the resulting slinky like sliced and cored apples in the food processor, which should theoretically nicely shredded them. In practice it made mushy shreds, but they were good enough. When I completed what the book assured me was enough to server four, which was somewhat problematic with there only being two of us, I put some on a plate, sprinkled it with a mix of cinnamon and sugar and brought it to Fabian with a fork.
I folded down the foldy bit of the couch, put the rest of of apple omelet stuff on a plate, and put the plate on the foldy bit. Then joined Fabian on the couch with a plate of my own and more of the cinnamon sugar mix. He seemed to be enjoying it so I made my closing argument on behalf of civilization, "That was brought you you by civilization. So, do you still think civilization is useless?"
"You were right. Civilization is useful. For food."
"It ought to be, it started with the invention of the plow."
Civilization preserved, I relaxed, ate my apple omelet, and watched John Oliver.
So, instead what you get is an update that consists entirely of the narrator defending civilization. In his own peculiar way. Enjoy.
- Bad Novel Part N+1
Fabian was willing to let me try to prove civilization was useful. His willingness manifested itself in the form of following me around listening to what I said without saying anything. That kind of silence can be disturbing, but it was probably better than having him offer counter arguments as I was completely unprepared for that.
I led Fabian into a local supermarket. As with most supermarkets the produce was right inside the front door. A rainbow of fruit that most people almost certainly fail to appreciate. "You want to see the utility of civilization? Take a look around." I pointed, to the gala apples, "Apples in the dead of winter: ninety-nine cents a pound." There was something that seemed wrong with that. I stared at the price in silence and thought about it. An unpleasant truth sank in, "Which is sixteen cents more than I expected. I missed the damn sale." I grabbed a three pound bag anyway, then found something else to point at, "Banana's 49 cents a pound. Here." I don't actually know where banana's are grown, but I do know that it is somewhere in the massive region unofficially known as, 'not remotely near here.' We rounded a fruit stand and I had something new to point at. "Oranges as well, seven ninety-nine for a bag of," the bag didn't say so I had to count, "eleven." That didn't sound right so I counted again. It really was eleven. Who puts eleven oranges in a bag? "Eleven.
"And it isn't just fruit. If I want to, I can write a a letter and have delivered to someone in the middle of nowhere Montana for 44 cents. Or the backwoods of Alaska for the same price. Now 44 cents might sound like a lot when you consider that you can almost buy a pound of bananas for that, but think about how much it would cost to have that same letter delivered to the Alaskan frontier without civilization.
"First you'd need to find a messenger willing to make the trip. Then you need transportation. I haven't checked recently but I think the cost of a horse or a donkey is a lot higher than a pound of fruit. Planes are right out without civilization to bring you the fuel and maintain the runways. If you couldn't find one person to make the entire trek you'd need to set up some kind of relay, paying each messenger along the way, and all of this without civilization to help you call ahead.
"Now you might say- Hey! Mineolas two for a dollar." I have no idea what I was going to say he might say. Bagged two mineolas an put them in the cart. "Anyway, I hope you like fruit. It was either bring you here or bring you to a library." Fabian rolled his eyes. "Don't dismiss libraries. Don't you dare. We can go to one right now and find out how to build a steam engine or a wind turbine or whatever we want. And if they don't have the exact 'how to build a steam engine' book we want they will have it shipped in from another library just so we can have a look. All of this free of charge."
Fabian looked unimpressed.
"Come on, we're making apple omelets, we need eggs and cinnamon."
He asked, "Apple omelets?" as if I had just said we were making dragon burgers with a side of green eggs and ham. Those two words were the only ones he spoke in the supermarket.
"Yes. The cinnamon is this way," I led him to the cinnamon and pointed out that, while I wasn't sure what form cinnamon naturally occurred in I was fairly sure that that form was not a finely ground powder in a convenient bottle. I likewise pointed out that I, a person without a yard and thus no way to support a chicken, found the availability of eggs useful.
I checked out and walked home with Fabian, commenting on the utility of streetlights on the way. I led him up to my apartment, and showed what I consider admirable restraint in not starting a lecture on the power grid when I switched on the lights.
Jonas came over to get a closer look at Fabian and asked, "Who's this then?"
"Good god, the cat can talk!"
"Good god, the random person can state the obvious," Jonas said.
I introduced them to each other by saying, "Werewolf, talking cat. Talking cat, werewolf." Jonas sniffed Fabian and then walked away. He went to sleep atop a pile of my clothes I had left on the dryer. I led Fabian to the kitchen where I gathered ingredients and tools together.
When I grabbed the fry pan I held it up and said, "This is stainless steel, I know nothing about mining or smelting. There is neither mine nor smelting place near here. At least I think there isn't a smelting place. I'm sure about the mine thing." I showed him the cookbook and said, "If you don't think modern printing is amazing, that's fine. But if you think that the move from having to copy everything by hand wasn't useful you're crazy. Moveable type and offset printing both brought to us by civilization."
Then came the apple peeler. It was a fairly standard, metal construction, the main body painted red, the base was a black suction cup, the shaft and the fork that held the apples were some type of silver metal, I really had no idea which, the crank had a simple plastic handle. On the other end the removable corer-slicer was screwed into place next to the spring loaded peeling bit. It was basic. It was utilitarian. It was a thing of beauty. I picked it up and showed it to him. "If you cannot see that this is awesome, there is something wrong with you. You may be beyond all help."
I put it down, stuck an apple on it, then peeled sliced and cored the apple in about a second. Maybe less. "Ok, I'm going to put all of this together, you don't need to watch. You're probably sick of me by now anyway. Have a seat," I pointed to the couch, "I'll put something on for you." I looked through the DVDs I had. I ruled out anything that took very long, which effectively eliminated all of my first thoughts. Serenity, movie or episode, was out. Battlestar Galactica started with a six hour miniseries. Doctor Strangelove runs for 93 minutes. My options were limited.
I put on a recording of a John Oliver stand up thing called Terrifying Times. It was probably not the best thing to do when trying to convince someone of the positives of civilization. Discussion of George W. Bush, inflatable barbeques, and Oreo pizzas does not really support the idea civilization produces useful things. It was hilarious though, and Fabian laughed.
I peeled the apples and put the resulting slinky like sliced and cored apples in the food processor, which should theoretically nicely shredded them. In practice it made mushy shreds, but they were good enough. When I completed what the book assured me was enough to server four, which was somewhat problematic with there only being two of us, I put some on a plate, sprinkled it with a mix of cinnamon and sugar and brought it to Fabian with a fork.
I folded down the foldy bit of the couch, put the rest of of apple omelet stuff on a plate, and put the plate on the foldy bit. Then joined Fabian on the couch with a plate of my own and more of the cinnamon sugar mix. He seemed to be enjoying it so I made my closing argument on behalf of civilization, "That was brought you you by civilization. So, do you still think civilization is useless?"
"You were right. Civilization is useful. For food."
"It ought to be, it started with the invention of the plow."
Civilization preserved, I relaxed, ate my apple omelet, and watched John Oliver.
Re: I'm thinking of writing a novel.
A good defence of civilization. lol.
I'd think a werewolf would like something meatier to eat, but I guess in their human state that wouldn't necessarily apply.
I'd think a werewolf would like something meatier to eat, but I guess in their human state that wouldn't necessarily apply.
Growing old is inevitable.......Growing up is optional
-
chris the cynic
- Human Encyclopaedia
- Posts: 2207
- Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 9:50 pm
Re: I'm thinking of writing a novel.
Well meat is never out of season, so it wouldn't make as much sense.
"Moose? I can kill one myself right now. I don't need civilization for that."
Actually as far as I know the type of store I was thinking of doesn't sell moose meat, but if Fabian has any respect for personal property at all (and he should, he wasn't raised by a Luddite) he's not likely to say, "Cow? I can kill one myself." That said, he might say, "Cow meat? I can go kill and eat a moose right now."
I suppose meat from as far away as bananas would work, but I don't know what meat that would be, I don't know that it would look any different from local meat if pointed at, and I don't know that Fabian would recognize it by either name or sight.
Also when the possibility of including the Star Trek cook book popped into my head I sort of got my heart set on apple omelets.
-
In other news. Fuck you, Windows. You're still better than Mac, certainly I've never encountered anything even remotely like a Mac bug while using you as my operating system, but if I put the computer into hibernation that means I want to be able to use the things I have open exactly as they are when I turn the computer on. That's what hibernation is (unless we're talking about animals.) Can you not see the problem with starting windows update and restarting my fucking computer immediately after it comes out of hibernation?
I'll admit that I got distracted and probably shouldn't have left you on your own for more than a minute or two, but if I had wanted to turn the computer off and lose all of my unsaved stuff I would have done that my own damn self, not put it into, "Please keep everything as it is mode." Coming out of "Please for the love of god don't close any programs," mode and almost immediately closing all programs is an asshole move, Windows.
For that matter, just in general when I said that you could update at 3 AM I did not mean you could restart the computer without my permission because I stepped out of the room for a few minutes at a time that was definitely not 3 AM.
"Moose? I can kill one myself right now. I don't need civilization for that."
Actually as far as I know the type of store I was thinking of doesn't sell moose meat, but if Fabian has any respect for personal property at all (and he should, he wasn't raised by a Luddite) he's not likely to say, "Cow? I can kill one myself." That said, he might say, "Cow meat? I can go kill and eat a moose right now."
I suppose meat from as far away as bananas would work, but I don't know what meat that would be, I don't know that it would look any different from local meat if pointed at, and I don't know that Fabian would recognize it by either name or sight.
Also when the possibility of including the Star Trek cook book popped into my head I sort of got my heart set on apple omelets.
-
In other news. Fuck you, Windows. You're still better than Mac, certainly I've never encountered anything even remotely like a Mac bug while using you as my operating system, but if I put the computer into hibernation that means I want to be able to use the things I have open exactly as they are when I turn the computer on. That's what hibernation is (unless we're talking about animals.) Can you not see the problem with starting windows update and restarting my fucking computer immediately after it comes out of hibernation?
I'll admit that I got distracted and probably shouldn't have left you on your own for more than a minute or two, but if I had wanted to turn the computer off and lose all of my unsaved stuff I would have done that my own damn self, not put it into, "Please keep everything as it is mode." Coming out of "Please for the love of god don't close any programs," mode and almost immediately closing all programs is an asshole move, Windows.
For that matter, just in general when I said that you could update at 3 AM I did not mean you could restart the computer without my permission because I stepped out of the room for a few minutes at a time that was definitely not 3 AM.
Re: I'm thinking of writing a novel.
Yes that can be a major pain. I set my updates to let me know and then I'll download. Windows would make an excellent megnomanical dictator.
Growing old is inevitable.......Growing up is optional
Re: I'm thinking of writing a novel.
Aye, I try and keep an eye on what Windows wants to download...bobby 55 wrote:Yes that can be a major pain. I set my updates to let me know and then I'll download. Windows would make an excellent megnomanical dictator.
I recently did a 'restore factory image', and I had over 100 (<9000) updates banging at my door for installation, gotta love Vista!
~Protracted suicide of reason~
Re: I'm thinking of writing a novel.
SON...<ChrisTheCynic> Ah, well I'm off to try to put the beginnings of a plot in my bad novel with werewolves and a talking cat.
<OiNutter> Make sure the cat is always high
<OiNutter> because that's hilarious
<OiNutter> WAIT
<OiNutter> scratch that
<OiNutter> Even better
<OiNutter> he's not always high
<OiNutter> he's MORE THAN ALWAYS high!
<OiNutter> He's got a time disease!
<OiNutter> And his name should definitely be Sninex.
I AM DISAPPOINT.
-
chris the cynic
- Human Encyclopaedia
- Posts: 2207
- Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 9:50 pm
Re: I'm thinking of writing a novel.
Are you disappoint that I have yet to put in the beginnings of a plot, or that the cat already had a name when you said that?OiNutter wrote:SON...<ChrisTheCynic> Ah, well I'm off to try to put the beginnings of a plot in my bad novel with werewolves and a talking cat.
<OiNutter> Make sure the cat is always high
<OiNutter> because that's hilarious
<OiNutter> WAIT
<OiNutter> scratch that
<OiNutter> Even better
<OiNutter> he's not always high
<OiNutter> he's MORE THAN ALWAYS high!
<OiNutter> He's got a time disease!
<OiNutter> And his name should definitely be Sninex.
I AM DISAPPOINT.
-
chris the cynic
- Human Encyclopaedia
- Posts: 2207
- Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 9:50 pm
Re: I'm thinking of writing a novel.
I have, on occasion, thought about this since I completely failed to finish it in the time I allotted myself.
One thing that I've come upon is that I think I'd like the narrator to occasionally throw in somewhat bizarre similes. I've only worked out two so far. The second one is disgusting, or at least it should be assuming I have any writing skill whatsoever.
-
You know how it feels when a dish machine rips free of its moorings, lurches forward, and hits you in the elbow? It felt like that, only over my entire body.
-
When I saw what had happened I felt sick. Not, I'd better sit down for a moment and maybe take an antacid sick. No. You know the feeling when your naive hope that you'll never throw up again is crushed by the cold hard reality of kneeling in a dimly lit bathroom praying that you'll stop vomiting long enough to breathe while bits of chewed up apple slide down your face and the liquid in the toilet turns a shade of brown that is only seen when the sickly yellow of half digested orange juice is lit so poorly most of the color drops out? That was how I felt.
-
-
And in the spirit of describing mundane bodily functions best left undescribed, I give you the opening to a possible story about zombies.
Whenever people of a certain age get together one topic that invariably comes up is what they miss most from before the collapse. I don't know whether this is a case of nostalgia, in-group bonding, a group effort to to escape the confines of present reality, or what. Given the psychology doesn't seem to be on anyone's list I'll probably never will know. What I do know is that I think that most people give the wrong answers.
People tend to do broad things, they miss having electricity, or trade, reliable sources of gasoline, or currency backed up by the full faith and credit of the American government. As if life is all about the big things. It isn't. Little things matter more.
I miss cold medicine.
The truth is that without electricity all important things can still get done, you just need some work and some imagination, if you need gasoline you're trying to go too far or move too much, and there is nothing wrong with paying for things in chickens. It's actually better in a lot of ways. Chickens breed; money doesn't. But if you're trying to fight the roving hordes of the undead with a bad cold life becomes very hard very fast.
Case in point, three days after the first full moon after the summer equinox of the year Ansala fell I was trekking through the wilderness when I came across a gaggle of 30 zombies feasting on a recently slain deer. The hunter, nowhere in evidence, had wisely abandoned both the kill and the arrow. They couldn't smell me, I was downwind. The inability to smell their rancid stench is probably the only upside to a cold. But with watery itchy eyes, a clouded mind, and a nose that wouldn't stop running I would have gladly suffered their smell in exchange for being without that cold.
Normally they would have been no problem. I would have walked on by and the event would hardly be worth remembering. I sneezed and epic sneeze. I think I pulled a muscle in my left eye, when I blinked the water from my eyes I saw that they were all coming my way.
Some people, city folk secure behind fences or walls, think it is laughable that anyone would fear zombies. They think that they're just lumbering oafs who a child could escape. When thirty of them are lumbering oafishly your way, you can't see clearly as you try to squint through the water in your eyes, and your better hand is dripping with a sinus full of snot -destroying any hope of holding a weapon well- it is no laughing matter.
I wiped off my hand on my pants, ditched my pack and ran like hell. Fifty fucking chickens worth of supplies, lost because not one capsule of cold medicine remains in the world.
-
-
And in the spirit of beginnings of zombie stories, I give you one that Jonas would label as too dadaist. Probably. Anyway, story:
I shouldn't be here.
It started last Thursday. I'm coming home on my kick scooter and I hear a noise. I recognize it because a week or two earlier I heard the same thing. My wheel's broken down. It'll need to be replaced. That's ok, I got an extra wheel when I replaced the first one. But it means I need to walk. It'll take an extra hour. Maybe two. It's a cloudy day, I hope it doesn't rain.
Hour later, I'm waiting for the light to turn so I can cross the last street between home and me. Behind me is a car place. Car has the hood up. Two people are looking at it. Talking. I hear something about "emissions" and "Gas line" but I don't care. The light changed. I walk across the street.
Boom.
Ground, face. Face, ground. Pain. Car screeches to a strop one foot from my head. You ran a red light. Bastard. Vision fades to black.
I wake up in a hospital bed. They want me gone. Emergency over, I can't pay, they want the bed for paying customers. They want me to pay for ambulance ride. I explain that I have 26 dollars in my bank account. They're welcome to it. They are not amused.
My clothes are bloody, tattered. I put them on, walk outside. Bright sunshiny day. How long was I in there? I've never been here before. Why did they take me to this hospital? The other one was closer. Whatever, I can see the road home from here -I'm on the hill- it shouldn't be too hard to get there. I start out.
Walk is uneventful, I wonder where my scooter is. Come to the edge of a busy street. I wait at the corner for a light to change. There's a zombie. Light changes, I walk fast. It can't be a zombie. Zombies aren't real. The word doesn't even refer to the walking dead. It's all about people drugged into slavery. Or something.
I look again. I smell rotting flesh, I see blood dripping from the left corner of its mouth. Definitely a zombie. Random trivia, you have failed me. I walk faster. Take random turns. Get lost in a park. What park is this? I don't know where I am. The zombie does. He follows close behind. I keep going, he keeps following, lose track of time. Forget I have a watch. Sun moves across the sky. No one around but zombie and me.
Bright light. Don't look.
I'm on the ground. Gray sky. Ashes fall like snow. Zombie isn't around. I'm all alone. I stand. I walk. I don't know where to go. I don't know where I am.
Time passes, can't tell how much. Sky's gray, no sun, watch stopped. Come across buildings. Flattened. No signs of life. Not even seagulls. There's always seagulls. More time passes. Not night yet, everything looks the same.
Finally a change. Helicopter lands. Black. People get out. Half Life has taught me that this is a government death squad. Nicest government death squad I ever met. Can't get a good look at them through their radiation suits, but they're definitely polite. Incredibly so. Much more so than the doctors at the hospital.
I get into the helicopter, they give me a lift. I look to see that the city is gone. Flat. We fly to a base. Hastily set up, modular parts. Government death squad drops me off, base personnel take over. Apparently my clothes are bad, have to be destroyed. I am showered, they give me new clothes. The government has no taste in clothes.
I talk to some people. Turns out my neighborhood was evacuated before the blast. If my scooter hadn't failed I'd be safely elsewhere. Instead I'm in government death squad base. I shouldn't be here.
-
-
All of these are examples of why you should write down an idea immediately upon having it rather than wait a while and try to grasp at echoes of the original thought. Though the zombie stories (er, zombie story beginnings) might have benefited. I seem to recall there being a lot more mucus in the original conception of the first one, and the second one went through a phase where it would have been even less pleasant to read.
One thing that I've come upon is that I think I'd like the narrator to occasionally throw in somewhat bizarre similes. I've only worked out two so far. The second one is disgusting, or at least it should be assuming I have any writing skill whatsoever.
-
You know how it feels when a dish machine rips free of its moorings, lurches forward, and hits you in the elbow? It felt like that, only over my entire body.
-
When I saw what had happened I felt sick. Not, I'd better sit down for a moment and maybe take an antacid sick. No. You know the feeling when your naive hope that you'll never throw up again is crushed by the cold hard reality of kneeling in a dimly lit bathroom praying that you'll stop vomiting long enough to breathe while bits of chewed up apple slide down your face and the liquid in the toilet turns a shade of brown that is only seen when the sickly yellow of half digested orange juice is lit so poorly most of the color drops out? That was how I felt.
-
-
And in the spirit of describing mundane bodily functions best left undescribed, I give you the opening to a possible story about zombies.
Whenever people of a certain age get together one topic that invariably comes up is what they miss most from before the collapse. I don't know whether this is a case of nostalgia, in-group bonding, a group effort to to escape the confines of present reality, or what. Given the psychology doesn't seem to be on anyone's list I'll probably never will know. What I do know is that I think that most people give the wrong answers.
People tend to do broad things, they miss having electricity, or trade, reliable sources of gasoline, or currency backed up by the full faith and credit of the American government. As if life is all about the big things. It isn't. Little things matter more.
I miss cold medicine.
The truth is that without electricity all important things can still get done, you just need some work and some imagination, if you need gasoline you're trying to go too far or move too much, and there is nothing wrong with paying for things in chickens. It's actually better in a lot of ways. Chickens breed; money doesn't. But if you're trying to fight the roving hordes of the undead with a bad cold life becomes very hard very fast.
Case in point, three days after the first full moon after the summer equinox of the year Ansala fell I was trekking through the wilderness when I came across a gaggle of 30 zombies feasting on a recently slain deer. The hunter, nowhere in evidence, had wisely abandoned both the kill and the arrow. They couldn't smell me, I was downwind. The inability to smell their rancid stench is probably the only upside to a cold. But with watery itchy eyes, a clouded mind, and a nose that wouldn't stop running I would have gladly suffered their smell in exchange for being without that cold.
Normally they would have been no problem. I would have walked on by and the event would hardly be worth remembering. I sneezed and epic sneeze. I think I pulled a muscle in my left eye, when I blinked the water from my eyes I saw that they were all coming my way.
Some people, city folk secure behind fences or walls, think it is laughable that anyone would fear zombies. They think that they're just lumbering oafs who a child could escape. When thirty of them are lumbering oafishly your way, you can't see clearly as you try to squint through the water in your eyes, and your better hand is dripping with a sinus full of snot -destroying any hope of holding a weapon well- it is no laughing matter.
I wiped off my hand on my pants, ditched my pack and ran like hell. Fifty fucking chickens worth of supplies, lost because not one capsule of cold medicine remains in the world.
-
-
And in the spirit of beginnings of zombie stories, I give you one that Jonas would label as too dadaist. Probably. Anyway, story:
I shouldn't be here.
It started last Thursday. I'm coming home on my kick scooter and I hear a noise. I recognize it because a week or two earlier I heard the same thing. My wheel's broken down. It'll need to be replaced. That's ok, I got an extra wheel when I replaced the first one. But it means I need to walk. It'll take an extra hour. Maybe two. It's a cloudy day, I hope it doesn't rain.
Hour later, I'm waiting for the light to turn so I can cross the last street between home and me. Behind me is a car place. Car has the hood up. Two people are looking at it. Talking. I hear something about "emissions" and "Gas line" but I don't care. The light changed. I walk across the street.
Boom.
Ground, face. Face, ground. Pain. Car screeches to a strop one foot from my head. You ran a red light. Bastard. Vision fades to black.
I wake up in a hospital bed. They want me gone. Emergency over, I can't pay, they want the bed for paying customers. They want me to pay for ambulance ride. I explain that I have 26 dollars in my bank account. They're welcome to it. They are not amused.
My clothes are bloody, tattered. I put them on, walk outside. Bright sunshiny day. How long was I in there? I've never been here before. Why did they take me to this hospital? The other one was closer. Whatever, I can see the road home from here -I'm on the hill- it shouldn't be too hard to get there. I start out.
Walk is uneventful, I wonder where my scooter is. Come to the edge of a busy street. I wait at the corner for a light to change. There's a zombie. Light changes, I walk fast. It can't be a zombie. Zombies aren't real. The word doesn't even refer to the walking dead. It's all about people drugged into slavery. Or something.
I look again. I smell rotting flesh, I see blood dripping from the left corner of its mouth. Definitely a zombie. Random trivia, you have failed me. I walk faster. Take random turns. Get lost in a park. What park is this? I don't know where I am. The zombie does. He follows close behind. I keep going, he keeps following, lose track of time. Forget I have a watch. Sun moves across the sky. No one around but zombie and me.
Bright light. Don't look.
I'm on the ground. Gray sky. Ashes fall like snow. Zombie isn't around. I'm all alone. I stand. I walk. I don't know where to go. I don't know where I am.
Time passes, can't tell how much. Sky's gray, no sun, watch stopped. Come across buildings. Flattened. No signs of life. Not even seagulls. There's always seagulls. More time passes. Not night yet, everything looks the same.
Finally a change. Helicopter lands. Black. People get out. Half Life has taught me that this is a government death squad. Nicest government death squad I ever met. Can't get a good look at them through their radiation suits, but they're definitely polite. Incredibly so. Much more so than the doctors at the hospital.
I get into the helicopter, they give me a lift. I look to see that the city is gone. Flat. We fly to a base. Hastily set up, modular parts. Government death squad drops me off, base personnel take over. Apparently my clothes are bad, have to be destroyed. I am showered, they give me new clothes. The government has no taste in clothes.
I talk to some people. Turns out my neighborhood was evacuated before the blast. If my scooter hadn't failed I'd be safely elsewhere. Instead I'm in government death squad base. I shouldn't be here.
-
-
All of these are examples of why you should write down an idea immediately upon having it rather than wait a while and try to grasp at echoes of the original thought. Though the zombie stories (er, zombie story beginnings) might have benefited. I seem to recall there being a lot more mucus in the original conception of the first one, and the second one went through a phase where it would have been even less pleasant to read.
Re: I'm thinking of writing a novel.
You should write a book. Just make it a compilation of short stories or something if you can't get past your writers block long enough to do a novel.
The word novel always confuses me, because it means the opposite in Swedish... so annoying.
The word novel always confuses me, because it means the opposite in Swedish... so annoying.
"Delays are temporary; mediocrity is forever."
odio ergo sum
odio ergo sum
Re: I'm thinking of writing a novel.
That's not a bad idea Jaedar. Zombies are in just about every form of entertainment also, so there's a ready made market. For people wanting to read zombie stories not the zombies themselves. lol
Growing old is inevitable.......Growing up is optional
-
nerdenstein
- Illuminati
- Posts: 1591
- Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2008 7:40 pm
- Location: Leicester, England, UK.
Re: I'm thinking of writing a novel.
Interesting Read 
I've just sat and read all of it up too the fourth Page of this thread.
Half way down that page, my eyes started to hurt somewhat and headache kicked in.
Teaches me to read long pieces of text off a laptop screen.
You have quite a unique writing style Chris. If this is the sorta stuff you come up with when you have Writers block I will be most interested to see what other idea's you will come up with in the future.
I will read the rest when I find the time.
Excellent Work
EDIT: Just finished reading your Zombie Story Beginnings..
Awesome I must say
I've just sat and read all of it up too the fourth Page of this thread.
Half way down that page, my eyes started to hurt somewhat and headache kicked in.
Teaches me to read long pieces of text off a laptop screen.
You have quite a unique writing style Chris. If this is the sorta stuff you come up with when you have Writers block I will be most interested to see what other idea's you will come up with in the future.
I will read the rest when I find the time.
Excellent Work
EDIT: Just finished reading your Zombie Story Beginnings..
Awesome I must say
The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music.
-
chris the cynic
- Human Encyclopaedia
- Posts: 2207
- Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 9:50 pm
Re: I'm thinking of writing a novel.
More Zombies, still no more werewolf.
Wrote this a while ago, but I did it on paper so it's just been sitting, waiting, unshared. This started off as the same setting, and indeed same character, as the thing about cold medicine, but it somehow managed to drift sideways into another world. I can actually pinpoint the exact word where the shift happened. That word is Erin. The character of Erin, and her associated backstory, do not really fit into my original, very vague, concept of what kind of a world the first thing was set in.
Where massive plot holes exist, I maintain that they are probably Erin's fault
-
I saw an oil rig once when I was little. It's my first memory. My family went on a cruise, as we made the journey from port to the open ocean we passed through a forest of them. I remember looking at one through the railing at the edge of the ship. It was like a great metal island on stilts, towering into the air. Like a floating island from a children's story, only it wasn't among the clouds in some far off place, it was right in front of me, with others stretching off into the distance until the dotted the horizon.
People like to hear me talk about it, they like to hear me describe what it was like to see it tower up above, they like to hear about the cranes atop it and how it felt like if that safety rail weren't there I could reach out and touch it. They expect me to remember what color it was and are disappointed if I admit that I can't. I think the reason that they care so much is that it gives them a connection to a bygone time, it allows them to imagine a golden age when men could build such things and humanity ruled over nature.
What they forget is that even at the height of civilization when those behemoths were actually in use a significant portion of oil production in the country was from little wells in the ground. They'd just sit there, in the woods or on a farm, collecting oil while the world ignored them.
Erin's father didn't forget about them. Before the last gas pump ran dry, before the last abandoned car had been siphoned, before the great hulking tanks had been emptied, he was out finding those wells. He claimed the abandoned ones and made deals the owners who hadn't abandoned theirs. By the time the masses came to grips with the idea that no more tankers would make harbor he was the local oil industry.
Of course, I'm told, oil in it's pure form isn't that useful. It's just gunk that burns. We live in the woods; everything burns. To save a portion of prefall technology required refined oil. Erin's mother had foreseen that and, by the time crude was coming in she was ready to make it into something people could use. A business partnership made sense, things progressed as things do, and that is why Erin exists.
To be honest, besides generators (for the perimeter floodlights) and one other thing I have no idea what they use the gas for. But that other thing is pretty significant. Anyone who can muster a helicopter in this day and age is practically a force of nature.
Erin is heir to that force of nature family, but she'd also a part of the new generation, raised with no concept of how things used to be. She has no idea how the powerful are supposed to act. That, and she wasn't raised on stories of islands in the clouds, she was told stories of independent little princesses who ran away to have adventures with dragons. I suppose it is unsurprising that more often than not she can be found outside the walls.
But to truly understand her you need to realize that she didn't want to be the little princess, she wanted to the dragon. Which is why, multiple times now, I've had my ass pulled out of the fire by a great flying metal beast piloted by an upstart from before the post fall generation.
I like to think that if I had a daughter she'd be a lot like Erin.
-
-
Actually, it seems like nothing I'm writing in this setting goes the way I expect. The “Maybe we're overreacting,” person in the following was originally supposed to be a completely reasonable non-dickish individual, and may very well become one again should I ever try to convert these various scenes into a semi-coherent narrative. He just felt like a bit of an ass as I was writing this. The reason he likely won't stay an ass if this is all combined into a single story is that in the larger context I don't think it makes sense to have an asshole in the room.
-
“Maybe we're overreacting.”
“They have a fucking tank.”
“Yes,” It was the kind of annoyed yes that indicates the person saying it doesn't understand why the person they are responding to deserves a response or is even in the same room as them. “I know that,” he paused, apparently for effect, but unless the desired effect was to have me think he was a prick I don't think it worked out how he'd hoped, “but they can't fit their entire army inside it. If they take heavy losses they'll have to retreat.” He made a show of turning his entire body to face me, and said, “Taking the tank with them.” He turned back to the others. “They can't beat us.”
I suppressed the urge to throttle him, put some effort into keeping a civil tone, and said, “I don't think they need to.” I stepped up to the map and pointed, “If we're right this is the route they'll be taking. Right through the old city.”
“So?”
“So, if you go there and do everything right - tread softly, cover your scent, take every precaution - you're guaranteed to stir up ten to a hundred zombies. That's one person. When they march an army through there, the sound and stench of countless soldiers combined with whatever noise a tank makes is going to wake things that haven't stirred in decades.
“We're talking about thousands upon thousands of walking dead. They'll be no bother to the army, it's moving too fast for the zombies to catch it, but they will catch its scent and they'll follow it,” I traced my finger along the map, from the old city to our town, “right to us. When they get here what do you think will happen if a tank has knocked holes in our walls? The army can simply move off. We can't. This is our home, everything we depend on to survive is here. We can't pick up and leave. How do you plan on holding off a horde like that? How many bullets do we have, how many arrows?
“The army can simply wait until we've all been eaten or turned, then they can pass by upwind, lead the zombies away, and circle back to collect their spoils.
“They don't need to beat us, they just need to weaken our defenses.”
No one spoke. I broke the silence by adding, “That's just with the local help. We have no idea what's already in their wake. Imagine if they're coming here by way of New York.”
“We don't need to worry about that,” Erin said. “Zombies wouldn't follow them for hundreds of miles, not at the speed they're going.” She was right.
We just needed to worry about several thousand local zombies.
Wrote this a while ago, but I did it on paper so it's just been sitting, waiting, unshared. This started off as the same setting, and indeed same character, as the thing about cold medicine, but it somehow managed to drift sideways into another world. I can actually pinpoint the exact word where the shift happened. That word is Erin. The character of Erin, and her associated backstory, do not really fit into my original, very vague, concept of what kind of a world the first thing was set in.
Where massive plot holes exist, I maintain that they are probably Erin's fault
-
I saw an oil rig once when I was little. It's my first memory. My family went on a cruise, as we made the journey from port to the open ocean we passed through a forest of them. I remember looking at one through the railing at the edge of the ship. It was like a great metal island on stilts, towering into the air. Like a floating island from a children's story, only it wasn't among the clouds in some far off place, it was right in front of me, with others stretching off into the distance until the dotted the horizon.
People like to hear me talk about it, they like to hear me describe what it was like to see it tower up above, they like to hear about the cranes atop it and how it felt like if that safety rail weren't there I could reach out and touch it. They expect me to remember what color it was and are disappointed if I admit that I can't. I think the reason that they care so much is that it gives them a connection to a bygone time, it allows them to imagine a golden age when men could build such things and humanity ruled over nature.
What they forget is that even at the height of civilization when those behemoths were actually in use a significant portion of oil production in the country was from little wells in the ground. They'd just sit there, in the woods or on a farm, collecting oil while the world ignored them.
Erin's father didn't forget about them. Before the last gas pump ran dry, before the last abandoned car had been siphoned, before the great hulking tanks had been emptied, he was out finding those wells. He claimed the abandoned ones and made deals the owners who hadn't abandoned theirs. By the time the masses came to grips with the idea that no more tankers would make harbor he was the local oil industry.
Of course, I'm told, oil in it's pure form isn't that useful. It's just gunk that burns. We live in the woods; everything burns. To save a portion of prefall technology required refined oil. Erin's mother had foreseen that and, by the time crude was coming in she was ready to make it into something people could use. A business partnership made sense, things progressed as things do, and that is why Erin exists.
To be honest, besides generators (for the perimeter floodlights) and one other thing I have no idea what they use the gas for. But that other thing is pretty significant. Anyone who can muster a helicopter in this day and age is practically a force of nature.
Erin is heir to that force of nature family, but she'd also a part of the new generation, raised with no concept of how things used to be. She has no idea how the powerful are supposed to act. That, and she wasn't raised on stories of islands in the clouds, she was told stories of independent little princesses who ran away to have adventures with dragons. I suppose it is unsurprising that more often than not she can be found outside the walls.
But to truly understand her you need to realize that she didn't want to be the little princess, she wanted to the dragon. Which is why, multiple times now, I've had my ass pulled out of the fire by a great flying metal beast piloted by an upstart from before the post fall generation.
I like to think that if I had a daughter she'd be a lot like Erin.
-
-
Actually, it seems like nothing I'm writing in this setting goes the way I expect. The “Maybe we're overreacting,” person in the following was originally supposed to be a completely reasonable non-dickish individual, and may very well become one again should I ever try to convert these various scenes into a semi-coherent narrative. He just felt like a bit of an ass as I was writing this. The reason he likely won't stay an ass if this is all combined into a single story is that in the larger context I don't think it makes sense to have an asshole in the room.
-
“Maybe we're overreacting.”
“They have a fucking tank.”
“Yes,” It was the kind of annoyed yes that indicates the person saying it doesn't understand why the person they are responding to deserves a response or is even in the same room as them. “I know that,” he paused, apparently for effect, but unless the desired effect was to have me think he was a prick I don't think it worked out how he'd hoped, “but they can't fit their entire army inside it. If they take heavy losses they'll have to retreat.” He made a show of turning his entire body to face me, and said, “Taking the tank with them.” He turned back to the others. “They can't beat us.”
I suppressed the urge to throttle him, put some effort into keeping a civil tone, and said, “I don't think they need to.” I stepped up to the map and pointed, “If we're right this is the route they'll be taking. Right through the old city.”
“So?”
“So, if you go there and do everything right - tread softly, cover your scent, take every precaution - you're guaranteed to stir up ten to a hundred zombies. That's one person. When they march an army through there, the sound and stench of countless soldiers combined with whatever noise a tank makes is going to wake things that haven't stirred in decades.
“We're talking about thousands upon thousands of walking dead. They'll be no bother to the army, it's moving too fast for the zombies to catch it, but they will catch its scent and they'll follow it,” I traced my finger along the map, from the old city to our town, “right to us. When they get here what do you think will happen if a tank has knocked holes in our walls? The army can simply move off. We can't. This is our home, everything we depend on to survive is here. We can't pick up and leave. How do you plan on holding off a horde like that? How many bullets do we have, how many arrows?
“The army can simply wait until we've all been eaten or turned, then they can pass by upwind, lead the zombies away, and circle back to collect their spoils.
“They don't need to beat us, they just need to weaken our defenses.”
No one spoke. I broke the silence by adding, “That's just with the local help. We have no idea what's already in their wake. Imagine if they're coming here by way of New York.”
“We don't need to worry about that,” Erin said. “Zombies wouldn't follow them for hundreds of miles, not at the speed they're going.” She was right.
We just needed to worry about several thousand local zombies.