2017 Wordos Halloween Shorts

Last night was an early Wordos Halloween holiday shorts  reading.  For once what I pounded out came in at a little under 800 words, so there was no last-minute hacking away at the manuscript to make it fit the word count.  I even managed to work in a bit from the other night's dream (I'm thinking my sub-conscious is a better writer than I am some times).   The stories ranged from the funny to the political to spooky, and we all ate too much. My story was a haunted spaceship story that I think I can send to various flash markets after I clean up the manuscript (Wednesday morning I imported it into Scrivener and cleaned up some of the syntax errors).

I was presented with a cool StoneKettle pen and thank you card for fifteen years (mostly) of leadig the Wordos Table.  

Afterward, we relocated and had a discussion of "The Fifth Season," and dystopias, and robot fashion, and facial recognition, and Internet privacy, and story lengths and plans for writing or avoiding  NaNoWriMo, and web comics and Anime, and then it was time for me to turn into a pumpkin.  

Prophetic Angel-Serpent Dream

I've been hitting the gym less, and my shoulder feels better.  I should go running on the eliptical soon.

I dreamed I was in a high school or college play.  It was a mash-up of Jesus Christ, Superstar" and "Godspell," I think.  I was playing a prophet, and typically, It was opening night and I was having difficulty recalling my lines.  (That I'm a prophet who's forgotten his lines strikes me as signifiant and funny in waking life.)  

I was wandering around back stage, which seemed to be a bunch of tunnels made out of parachutes. When I asked a woman if I could take a look at her script.  At this point I realized that my part had been cut, and that someone else had been given my part's song-and-dance number.  

There's a bit of break and the next thing I remember, I was on the stage.  This was a giant, twisty thing of concrete; in waking life I'm reminded of the "dinosaur bones" in Avery Park in Corvallis, only these were three stories high, and more like columns of frozen water.   They had been made by Winged Serpents -- which may have been fallen angels at one point -- and the Serpents had twisted around and around the concrete columns so that their scales were embossed in the sides of ridges that were wide enough for two or so people to be able to spiral up to the column's top.

I was in some sort of New Testiment Temptation of Christ... only I think the Archangle Micheal was speaking to me (or Christ...) and saying how the trails of his brothers (the Serpent-cast trail) were there.  The Serpents had turned to Angels in mid-squeeze, and when their Serpent bodies had fallen away, only the scaely impressions and their smaller Angel bodies were left behind.

Various cast members were using chalk to color in some of the scales into mosiacs, and chalking in things like nativity scenes along the inside of the trail.  

In waking life, I'm reminded of various dreams I had a few years ago which are part of a dream-knot, but in this dream no deities were hot, shirtless studs and there was no kissing.

Shoulder and Gym

Went to the gym Thursday (Oct 19_.  My right shoulder is definitely messed up, so I'm having to cut back on things.  30 minutes and 310 calories on the elliptical.  3x12 curl-ups on the Roman Chair.  3x12x30lbs on the triceps pull-down (being careful to engage my trapezoids and keep my elbows close to my sides).  3x12x20lbs deltoid pulls (going slowly and being sure to keep my arms low).  I started doing light-weight pec flies, but decided it was a bad idea.   Ditto on a barbell twisty thing that I made up.

Unfortunately, all the lat pulldowns, pec flies and stuff are making me buff in ways that I wanted... so I'm hoping I don't revert back to not-as-buff quickly.

I read a little about yoga, and I've been doing "cow-face" stretches (which I've always been able to do).  There's also a standing plank where you try to "move the paint down" a wall which feels good.  I'm doing some arm circles that I recalled from when I had frozen shoulder.   I really don't want a return to the year when I had encapsulitis in my left shoulder, because that really was demoralizing.

Futile Saturday

Saturday (Oct 14) was a fairly fruitless day.  I spent most of it looknig for a small plastic chip that I use to check in at the gym and for some papers that have gotten misplaced.   I went through various files of manuscripts... unfortunately, I've got the current stack of file folders with manuscripts, the stack of manuscripts that I was looking at last month but have put aside, the stupid junk-mail,  the older stack of stories that have made a few rounds in various slush piles, the odd folder with non-manuscript papers (which I hoped would have the missing paper but were mostly stupid junk-mail), and the stack of manuscript folders that have items in various stages of stuck-ness.  Oh, and some art.

Sunday we went on a nice hike in the Gorge.  There were many, many wooly-bear caterpillars.  They had think bands, and I think that means we're going to have a cold winter.

So not much writing. 

Saturday Gym Day

Went to the gym Saturday morning.  It was strange to be walking down the street while Venus shone brilliantly over the eastern hills and the waning quarter moon sailed high.  Orion's faint outline faded quickly before Sirius.  To think that this time a month ago, the sun would have already been up, and the temperature would have been in the low 60's instead of the mid 40's.

20 minutes and about 200 calories on the elliptical.  3x12x30lbs on the pec fly; 3x12x30lbs on the rear delt fly.  3x12x30lbs on the triceps pull-down.  3x12x35lbs bar-bell curls.  I did a few reverse bar-bell curls, but I could feel it in my right clavicle, so I stopped.  3x12 curl-ups on the Roman Chair.

Today is a "dig through the house and figure out where various lost objects have gone" day.  Unfortunately, the last few days have been dig through the house days, but the objects (mostly papers) haven't turned up, so to we're trying a few obscure locations, combined with "what the heck were we thinking when we last saw it."

Yay?

Gym Report and Dreams of Procession

Thursday was a gym night.  20 min and 200 calories on the elliptical.  10 minutes and 100 cal on the cable row machine.  I'm trying to be nice to my shoulder (having concluded that I probably pulled something on this pec-fly machine last month), so in addition to thinking about my deltoids and trapazoids, I've lowed my weights.  3x12x30lbs on the pec-fly; 3x12x30lbs on the rear delts. 12x60lbs plus 2x12x70lbs on the lat pull-down.  3x12x30 on the triceps pull-down.  3x12 curl-ups in the Roman Chair.  ... and then it was time to go.


On the dream front.  Just before I got out of bed Friday morning, I dreamed I was at Disneyland or Disneyworld I think the dream was coming out of some oddly scrambled murder mystery (involving balloon rides, and a grass seed broadcaster).  A bunch of young dancers queued up on either side of a long buffet service and started in a routine.   At this point I wanted to tweet my revelation that Mousketeers were simply a televised drill team (and Oh Dear, tweeting things has worked its way into my dreams).  

The performance changed--suddenly the blue-eyed, blond drill team (now that I'm thinking about it were in blue and white, my old high school colors) got a lot more darker skinned.  Some of the young men were shirtless, and everyone started wearing browns and oranges and feathers and Very Large Masks (which looked vaguely Klingon).   There were Hawaiians, and Africans, and Asians and some white-haired priest signaled the drums and everyone started drumming and then the everyone danced in procession along the buffet service chanting "Christ is our priest."  There was no actual liturgy, or communion, it was just dancing and chanting.

I think I wanted to tweet that, too.

The Clothing of Coming Out

Today (Oct 11) is National Coming Out Day.

I had to smile to myself as I got dressed:  I'm putting on my Gay Underwear, I thought as I reached for the same briefs I always put on.  And then I was stuck thinking about what Gay Underwear looks like:  either a "banana hammock" in striped lycra or else a leather jock-strap.  And then this always leads to memories from that one Minnesota Renn Faire with some players who must have been Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, one of whom wore an elaborate cod-piece bedecked like a Christmas tree ornament with gold ribbons and dripping with pearls.

...And now I'm putting on my Gay Pants... which are the same slacks I usually put on for work.  The exercise of calling everything gay lasted for a few more minutes as I pulled Gay Socks out of my Gay Dresser and walked out of my Gay Bedroom to feed my Gay Cats.  I did have fun quoting the movie "Jeffry" as I tied my old black and silver-threaded scarf and saying, "Can I do this?  Or does it make me look like some sort of Gay Superhero?" 

I'm of two minds about dressing to one's identity politics.  On one hand, it's necessary to remind people from time to time, that, yes, there are gay people who work next to them, who go grocery shopping, and who are parents of school-aged children.  And sometimes it's fun to dress up a little with a pink triangle and connect with other out gay folks.  On the other hand, I hate identity politics, and I dislike being reduced to a pink triangle, because I'm more than a guy with a husband or a man who is erotically attracted to other men. 

But at least I don't have to wear a hair shirt.

Plans and Dying Keyboards

Tuesday!  It's my writing night. We'll see what happens, but it will most likely be an editing night.

Ugh. Looks like I need to get some batteries.  Because the space key on my keyboard is dying.  (Gets new batteries for the keyboard.)  You should have seen the previous sentence before I went back and fixed it.  ...OK.  So, it looks like when the batteries are dying, the keyboard's space key stops working -- and apparently the P key and some of the arrow keys as well.

I suppose dying keyboards and the inability to type is a metaphor.

I'm working on a 8,700 word piece.  It's a fun fairy-tale-style story, and probably a hard sell.  I like the language in it, and the visuals -- and because of the fairy-tale voice, I need to turn up the characterization to make the story less distant.   It's mostly done, there are about three places that need some heavy polishing or re-working.  In particular the Bedroom Scene is being excessively awkward: I can tell I'm going to have to just write it as bawdily as I can, with phrases like "pulsing man-rod" and then go back for the parts that are saucy and clever and advance the plot and reveal character.

In other writing news, I got a rejection on a flash piece today -- it's a kind of list-story -- but in a way I'm relieved it did because it's a little too non-fictional, a little too snarky, and I probably should have not submitted it.  I'll let it rest for a few weeks to give it some distance from the real-life inspiration and then rework it so the pieces talk to each other more.

Slow Weekend

Went to the gym Thursday:  30 minutes and 320 calories on the elliptical.  3x12x20lbs on the Rear Delt.  3x12x80lbs on the Lat Pull-Down.  3x12 Roman Chair curl-ups.  3x12x20-ish (this particular machines had at least one pulley, so while I set it to 55lbs, I'm not sure what the actual load was) triceps pull-down.   Assorted 5lb shrugs.   2x30seconds planks.  2x30 second side-planks, followed by a brief Cobra Pose and a kind of Child Pose.  I'm continuing to baby my right clavicle/shoulder, and I felt energized and loose (as opposed to pumped and jammed).

Friday, Saturday and Sunday I've been fatigued and under the weather, and I spent most of the weekend resting and reading "The Oathbound" and "Oathbreakers" by Mercedes Lackey.  It's light, entertaining reading, and I had enough metal energy to look at the structure of the novels (the first shows its short-story structure much more clearly than the second). 

I really should get back to the gym... we'll see if I can must up enough oomph today (Monday).

Thank You, Library

I know I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but when I open a public library book and the scent of incense rises off of it, I'm pretty sure it's going to be dippy-hippy.   Sometimes this can be a good thing, but usually it isn't.  I'll admit, I'd checked out the book because of the author is a gay Wiccan, and I thought the writing would be good (or, in other words, address Wicca through the lens of sexual orientation and gender-bias).  Alas, it was a Wicca 101 book filled with vague references to any spiritual tradition you'd care to name and a lot of personal anecdotes.

On the minus-side, it tried to be scientific without actually using the scientific method.  The most egregious example was when it encouraged the reader to practice "cloud busting" as a measure of magickal/psychic ability and then followed up by saying that cloud busting doesn't always work because the universal powers may need a particular cloud or that busting that particular cloud isn't for The Higher Good.   I might have skimmed over any instructions to write "divine intervention" into the sources of error section of experiment write-ups in one's Book of Shadows, but I don't think so.

Also on the minus-side, it skirted the edge of Prosperity Wicca and treating the cosmos as your personal mail-order catalog.  Whenever I read prosperity twaddle, I am always reminded of Starhawk's comment that no amount of staring at green candles to attract a job is going to work unless you also go out and pound the pavement with your resume.

On the plus-side, it did suggest a Pavlovian technique of using unobtrusive hand gestures, or mudras, as a physical stimulus to aid in dropping into a ritual state of mental focus.  I think this could be useful for staying focused in stressful or emergency situations.  

In other library news, I checked out some books on novel writing.  I was hoping that the first one I've opened would be more about a novel's structure or characterization (or at least The Hero's Journey), but it seems to be more about marketing... which isn't too bad of a thing, but it's really bringing the tension between Art and Craft to the forefront.  One piece of advice I didn't want to hear -- as a writer who likes to play with ideas and who likes to play with words -- was about how writing shouldn't be too challenging to the reader.  I know you don't want to confuse the reader, and clashes with my desire to fashion a beautiful, whirling, kinetic sculpture of words.  Oh well.

Tuesday Writing

Tuesday night I tried writing in the UO's Knight Library.  On the plus side, it's open until 2 AM (at least while classes are in session).  On the minus side, it feels a little odd returning to my Day Jobbe at night. Also on the minus side, I'll be increasing my exposure to whatever undergraduate germs are going around.

I've decided that I want to polish up some 8000 to 10,000 word pieces, and then move forward to braided stories set on Venus.  Tuesday's effort was a re-read (and light editing) of a story that I'd put aside a few months ago.  One critique group loved it and pretty much sang arias of praise; another critique group focused on what didn't work and were (in some cases scathingly) robust.   Oh well; the take away is that the descriptive eye-candy is fun, and I need to add one or two more scenes and turn up the characterization dial a whole bunch.

A stupid head-ache on my part and version-its on the part of the manuscript called for an early night; so while I did get reaquainted with the piece, I got only minor editing accomplished.

Monday Gym Report

Went to the gym Monday night:  Read a "Write Your Novel" book on the elliptical, 25 minutes and about 250 cal.  The big revelation is that Dan Brown writes novels the way TV producers make game shows:  so that the watchers can vicariously participate.  I'm really feeling the tension between Art and Craft reading this particular book.   10 minutes and about 100 cal on the cable row machine.  Downstairs, 3x12x60lbs on the pec fly.  3x12x70bls on the lat-pull-down.  3x12 Roman Chair curl-ups.  3x12x20lbs tricecps pull-down.  2x12x20lbs deltoid-pulls.

Gym and Dark Shadows

Went to the gym Saturday.  I've been advised to mix things up a little more than I have been to help with my shoulder and back (work the back to balance out working the front).  30 minutes and 300 calories on the elipitcal (while I did line edits to a story).  3x12x20lbs on the butterfly pull (a reverse pec-fly).  3x12x80 Lat Pull-downs.  3x12 Roman Chair curls.  3x12 bridges.  Also some assorted quasi-yoga stretches.  Pool-noodle spine stretches and thigh faschia stretches.  30 second planks.   3x12x20lb triceps pull-downs.  

After the gym, I managed to actaully get a flu shot; the closest pharmacy always seems to require two visits for anything, and this was no acception (I'd dont the paperwork yesterday).  The advantage to going early Satruday was that almost no one else was there (sometimes going to this particular pharmacy is like visiting the Emergency Vets on New Years').  

I spent most of the day working on a short story at Caré John, in the rain.  Cicero visited between sprinkles, mostly because I was warm and dry.  He's usually only wants to sit in a lap for about three mintues, but I think he curled up on my lap for about fifteen before a bird or a squirrel or some other defeceless creature lured him into the neighbor's yard.

Mark's been Binge Watching "Dark Shadows," a black-and-white Horror-Soap from 1966.  The premise is that a wealthy, influencial family with secrets is visited by a vampire (and ancestor) who has been released from over 150 years in a coffin, and vampiric hijynx ensue.   It's kind of slow, and extra cheesy.   I have a very vague recolection of seeing the opening or closing credits, but being unable to read the Gothic Script of the show's title.  

I think the Soap Genre demands that the characters connect the dots much more slowly than the viewing audience.  For example, it seems a little odd that a medical doctor with a patient who has inexplicably lost a dangerous amount of blood and whose injuries are only two puncture marks on the neck wouldn't draw some obvious conclusions.  We've amazed The Child on several occasions by predicting actions and dialog.  We've also been coming up with drinking games we could play while watching and pretending to drink whenever anyone says "blood," "Colins", "I'm busy," or "I'll call a doctor-"/"No! Don't call a doctor! I'm not sick!"

A some point, I decided that Smokey should be in Dark Shadows and started to intone a typical opeing:  "My name is Smokey Winters..."

"Smokey Winters!?" Mark said.  "That sounds like a stripper's name."

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Today (Sunday) feels like a slow day.  I think I'm fighting off whatever Back-To-School bug is going around, and I'm a little sore from the shot.   I guess this makes it a good day for marketing.  So I've submitted a short story and a flash piece.  The short, unfortunately, has been making the rounds and finding a good market for it is proving to be a challenge.  The flash is experimental, and we'll see if it sells.