The Dream Factory

[ionfish]

This is just one of those crazy ideas that come to me in the middle of the night when I can't get to sleep, and I get up and scribble illegible ramblings. The cunning plan in question is to have a place to deposit all those little fragments of story that come to one but never seem to find a place in the greater scheme of things. Fragments, snippets, snapshots, a series of brief scribbles depicting people and places, a brainstorm of the weird and wonderful. An outlet for excess creativity, and a repository of ideas I can steal from when I run out.

I'm gonna kick this off with one of mine, but I hope other people will contribute too, and we can build some kind of madhouse full of idiosyncratic ideas, dragging the dreams that lurk like monsters in the depths of our psyche.

[ionfish]

The Bootleg Blues Asylum

Deep in the innards of Hell, past the spike pits and the lakes of fire, about five minutes from Satan’s citadel, stands a tall spire. Encircled by high walls, the only entrance is an iron gate fifty feet high, barred with the bones of dragons. This is the Bootleg Blues Asylum.

Inside, Robert Johnson holds court over the souls of bluesmen condemned to the underworld for some sin committed in life; murder, adultery, drunkenness, or just general mischief-making. They sit around and jam for all eternity, the mournful muses of earthly wailers, slide guitars weeping blue tears for Lucifer when he comes a-visitin’ each Saturday afternoon, right about teatime. Zyklon Blues, Hellhound On My Trail, and Tailbacks On The M25 With Nowhere To Go But Milton Keynes are his perennial favourites, although lately he’s been asking for Raghead Blues, which he chucklingly subtitles Jesus Says No To Terror!

[bluevorlon]

As I said on IRC.

"Right about teatime" holds that entire thing together. Without that one phrase it wouldn't work at all, as it is, I love it.

I found this whilst trawling through word documents. It could be a poem. It could be dialogue. It could be the introduction to something long gone and now forgotten.

But it is, and it's this.

--------

Slide guitar,
I never learned to play,
Except,
You and me,
Pour some tea,
And throw some gasoline,
On my fire,
We’ll go spotting,
Broken down cars,
Collecting rust and friends,
Nesting cats and natural ends,
Until it gets too dark
To see,
Anymore

----------

Also a single line which I somehow woke up with this morning...

"Splice a reel of celluloid into my heart"

[Bnonn]

I must say, I don't usually make stupid comments like this, but I really like that poem. It appeals to me.

[ionfish]

Nice stuff, mista volron - I expect more.

The following was the start of a short story that never went anywhere, but I think it had some nice imagery - it was something of an ironic comment on my own writing, and at the same time a celebration of it.


Desolation Row

There’s something out there. It gnaws silently at our souls, slowly consuming us. I see it in the blank faces of people in the street, carefully ignoring everything outside the tiny world they allow themselves to see. I see it in the concrete coffins of our homes, in the hollow eyes at supermarket checkouts, in the packed trains of commuters racing towards the treadmill. It’s a sickness, a cancer devouring our thoughts, a societal disease. It’s a serial killer stalking every one of us, turning us into dusty shadows...

It ends right in the middle of a sentence, trailing off into the desolation of literary oblivion, the lonely paragraph of my Great Work. All I have, save the inevitable detritus that accumulates around an idea: notebooks of character sketches, monochrome location shots, scribbled margin notes. Illegible scrawls echo brief moments of inspiration: a photo album of a forgotten holiday. A mind, lost out of time.

Just like me: drugged-up on prescription painkillers, vacant gaze resting on the water-stained expanse of the ceiling. Through the fog, I can just feel the bedsprings jabbing at my back through an inch of grubby mattress. The plaintive strains of a trumpet send tremors through my empty mind – exhaust fumes and the hissing roar of traffic drift in through the open window.

The phone rings, distantly: once, twice, three times. It stops abruptly in the middle of the fourth ring, and there’s a pause before I hear my sister’s army-surplus boots thudding up the narrow pine staircase to my room. She bangs loudly on the door:

“It’s for you!”

“Tell them I’m ill!” I yell through the door.

“It’s Emily!” she yells back.

I groan, loudly, before surrendering to the inevitable. “Alright, alright!”

Picking up the phone, I hold my hand over the mouthpiece. “Ok, I’ve got it!”

I wait for the loud, crackly click as she puts the other phone down.

“What is it?” I ask, attempting to infuse my voice with both feebleness and irritation.

“You’re stoned,” says the voice on the other end, calmly.

“So what?” I mutter, struggling to keep her face out of my mind.

...

The summer stretches ahead, an empty highway vanishing into the tangerine haze. Looking back, it’s hard to see the beginning; I’m not sure there is an end.

Hands stuffed deep in denim pockets, shoulders hunched, I take in the night-tinged afterglow that spans the sky. Twilight hangs heavy all around: the cries of swifts cut the air, shattering the stillness, and yet reinforcing it; a lonely musician echoing the space between words.

“Howdy, pilgrim.”

The softly drawled words drag me from my reverie, and I look down – down from the dark sky to the night-garbed figure before me. My lips twitch into a grin. “Evenin’, preacher.”

[Seeker]

Wow. Nice to see something like this come here on the Lounge.

I liked the last one ion, there is something there that just pulls your attention.

You never know, I might just post something here.

[thefrogprincess]

Hands stuffed deep in denim pockets, shoulders hunched, I take in the night-tinged afterglow that spans the sky. Twilight hangs heavy all around: the cries of swifts cut the air, shattering the stillness, and yet reinforcing it; a lonely musician echoing the space between words.

“Howdy, pilgrim.”

The softly drawled words drag me from my reverie, and I look down – down from the dark sky to the night-garbed figure before me. My lips twitch into a grin. “Evenin’, preacher.”

wooooooooo

[Captain Pierce]

Ion, when---ERRRRR, I mean if--I go to Hell, I can only hope I wind up at the Bootleg Blues Asylum. Excellent stuff.

Here's something I wrote sometime between September 1997 and September 1999...

4:30 a.m. on a Saturday.

What the hell am I doing up this early?

As I stepped out of my apartment building, I gave the police chopper hovering overhead the finger. I hoped the Army-surplus low-light cameras on the Army-surplus Comanche gave them a nice clear picture. I also hoped that the rumours I'd heard weren't true, and that the Army-surplus high-caliber miniguns had been removed from the CRPD's half-dozen choppers.

Either they had, or the pigs just didn't feel like wasting ammo on me, because I made it to my truck in one piece. I unplugged it from the charger, ran my universal card through the slot, and drove off.

Price of electricity went up again. Sometimes I think we'd be better off with gasoline again.

Some background on this if anyone cares--I was working my current job, but not yet married, which is how I can pin down those dates. I was out on a gig, babysitting A/V equipment, but with nothing to actually do but scribble stuff like this on a yellow legal pad. While it has that near-future thing going with the "Army-surplus" Comanche and electric cars, the waking up at 4:30 on a Saturday to the sound of a police helicopter hovering over my apartment were all to contemporary...

[Bedford]

Good idea, metal iron piscis. My contribution: from around the seventh month of 2002.

Sealing Whacks
Drive poison blood thru naked love,
Idle merry wicked flower.
Beneath a seemly fortuning maiden,
On winter's good sleeping street;
Measured hath she dire sorrow,
Mercy.
And the bad night doth jest.


It was gonna intro a short story, but alas, it did not. A little nosensical, but image-intensive.

[Omi-kun]

Hey Ion, what happened to that story you said you were going to write?

part of a story that has yet to exist;

Malaka
Stillness held stagnation. Motionless. The sea of air went unbroken in the eluding silence that occupied a space drenched in darkness: suffocating, devoid of breathing life. The room was barren except for a nondescript bunk bed in a corner of the room. Nothing but a thin white bed sheet covered it.

A figure sat in the former, bare arms wrapped around bare legs, long vapid locks of soft bronze rested against knees, lone strands wisped above forearms. The figure rested against the wall, crumpled sheets drawn around it.

Through the sole window, a sliver of lunar luster slipped past, illuminated the room by its reflection on the wall.
Perfect stillness pervaded through the room.

A muscle rippled across her right elbow. Paused. Slowly, she raised her head, just enough for two tear-dried eyes to stare forward. Motionless. She saw only a veil of darkness safe for the hint of a locker in the corner. Stray threads of shadowed hair sliced her view intermittently. A single strand hanged gleaming in the vague moonlight. She slightly tilted her head, watching the luminescence on the wall beside her. Heavenly light cast from afar.

Corporeality

Head reeled back between her arms, a sudden spasm trembled her body violently as the spate of memories previously withheld flooded out of her. “No” she cried meekly, blinking away another wave of tears. Her heart ached of grief, struggling to pull away from her chest. Flashes of the horror thrust themselves through her closed eyes and into her vision. There was no blood, no gore, no incorrigible imagery forever burned into memory. Just a moment when the communication link dropped; a distant silence followed by a sickening thud from miles away. Fire and smoke blooming toward that solid blue, mourning for the life of the past.

Death. Gone. Lost.

“No.” she shivered, pushed her knees together tightly, pulled the sleeves around her shoulders while short-cut nails dug across flesh. The air felt saturated with death, remorse. Her breathing became harder and faster. The moment of fatality replayed itself before her; the moment when she felt him gone, already journeying to oblivion, when she felt her pulse stopped, when the world stopped spinning. “No no no.” She buried her head deeper into the cavity between her arms, eyelids trembled, shutting on the incessant tears now rolling across her smooth, voluptuous cheek to end hanging on her sharp, pointed chin. The tickling sensation barely felt as they trickle down between her breasts as blood dribbled across the folds of the bed sheet.

story revised, made sadder and, hopefully, more comprehensible.
C&C desperately needed. How do I make it sadder and more enthralling??

[LoCo]

Hmmm, I'm ganna try some "On the spot" stuff here tell me if I should quit

---------------------

Time was not the problem, if it was not done right, he would just go back and do it again. The problem was staying sane long enough to go back. Jordan looked at him and nodded, he fliping up as Jordan dropped down. The music had started up again, every time he was in danger music seemed to play in his head. He called it danger music, it made his life more like a movie that way. In his line of work, you didn't want it to be real.

The air around him shattered as lead brushed his ear. Jordan was ahead of him now, just two levels down and drawing his gun looking towards the shooter. Diving behind a large barrel he barely stopped himself from falling off the edge of the rig, the shooter had him pinned down. He waited for Jordan to get a clear shot, but he never heard it. The rig started to rumble and the music in his head picked up the beat ...

[Omi-kun]

Your's read smooth, LoCo. I don't know much about narration, but I'm not sure if you should switch from third to second perspective (end of first paragraph). Other than that it's great, very smooth reading.

[Bnonn]

It's smooth because LoCo writes like a train of thought, and doesn't tend to use fullstops. Maybe you like that, but personally I find it really hard to read...

Still, the actual story is pretty kewl. LoCo tends to have good ideas, if not good grammar.

[LoCo]

Hey, watch it guys, my head will swell.

I know my grammar needs work, but I think my spelling needs more work. Grammar can be fixed with a few edits, but spelling for me is a bad thing, I have to use dictionary.com for every second word.

[Omi-kun]

Keep it up LoCo,

Bnonn, would you mind critiquing mine? I revised the first post

[Bnonn]

Omi: I've got half a critique written, which I'll post now. It's more a general comment on writing style than specific to your piece. I'm about to leave work, so I'll write up a some more extensive comments on your piece in particular when I get home.

Okay...my initial impression is that there's too much imagery. People seem to like to overburden their prose with images, and in my mind that's a bad idea. It overcomplicates the writing and weighs it down, and also tends to make it cliched and cheesy. I like to compare imagery to paintings; a room with too many paintings on the walls looks ugly and overloaded. However, a couple of tasteful and well-positioned paintings will improve an otherwise bland room immensely. Remember that a room doesn't have to have a lot of decoration to be nice to look at.

Right, at home and with lots of time to ponder. I'll do a paragraph-by-paragraph critique.

• Stillness held stagnation. Motionless. The sea of air went unbroken in the eluding silence that occupied a space drenched in darkness: suffocating, devoid of breathing life. The room was barren except for a nondescript bunk bed in a corner of the room. Nothing but a thin white bed sheet covered it.

Okay. Too many words. The first sentence is definitely too long, and it tries much too hard to sound special. You've used a lot of imagery, and I have a feeling you've tried to be original about it, but it just comes out sounding mismatched. You don't get seas of air. You don't get eluding silences. The way you describe the location of the air "which occupied..." is also very clumsy, and gives the appearance of a needless attempt at complex writing.

Conversely, the second and third sentences are nice and simple. They don't try to be showy; they're elegantly simple, particularly when compared to the first.

• A figure sat in the former, bare arms wrapped around bare legs, long vapid locks of soft bronze rested against knees, lone strands wisped above forearms. The figure rested against the wall, crumpled sheets drawn around it.

The first thing I notice about this paragraph is that the first sentence is confusing. When I read "A figure sat in the former", I am wondering what the "former" is. Once again, this seems like a needless attempt to write an unusual or showy sentence. Don't be afraid of simplicity, and don't be afraid to repeat words. There's a French saying about art: a true work of art is not one to which you cannot add anything more, but one from which there is nothing more to take away.

The other thing I notice is that the sentences are too long. I actually very much like the rest of the description. The repetition of "bare" works really well, and it's a good example of why not to be afraid of using the same word twice. Just, the sentences are too long. Short sentences are a good thing (most people will agree, but some won't). I like the "vapid locks", although I'd get rid of the "soft bronze" and just say maybe "vapid bronze locks". Break the sentence up, too. At the moment it's too long, and particularly doesn't flow with those commas there.

Also, don't use "it" for the figure when it's clearly a person. Let us know its a girl. Pronouns will save you a lot of clumsiness.

• Through the sole window, a sliver of lunar luster slipped past, illuminated the room by its reflection on the wall.
  Perfect stillness pervaded through the room.

I'd rewrite this completely. You spelled lustre wrong, incidentally, and you can't really use it like that. You want the sentence more active, and more concise. Something like "The room, lit by the lustre of moonlight from the single window, was perfectly still."

• A muscle rippled across her right elbow. Paused. Slowly, she raised her head, just enough for two tear-dried eyes to stare forward. Motionless. She saw only a veil of darkness safe for the hint of a locker in the corner. Stray threads of shadowed hair sliced her view intermittently. A single strand hanged gleaming in the vague moonlight. She slightly tilted her head, watching the luminescence on the wall beside her. Heavenly light cast from afar.

I'm not too keen on the first sentence, and the use of "paused" as a pause seems a little passe, but I won't suggest changing it since it's rather subjective. I'd suggest appending "motionless" to one or other of the sentences it sits between though. "safe" should be "save". Don't say "veil of darkness"; it's a cliche. I'd also suggest rephrasing the mention of the locker. A "hint" of a locker doesn't really work imo; perhaps mention reflection off it rather. I'd remove "shadowed" from the next sentence, and use a more conventional word than "sliced". Once again, it seems like you're trying too hard to sound interesting or imaginative. Basically you're using too many adjectives and adverbs. Similarly, dump "vague". We know that moonlight isn't very strong, and you've mentioned that there's only a single lightsource. "Heavenly light cast from afar" seems somewhat corny too, but you may have a reason for saying it; for example, describing what the character sees it as.

• Head reeled back between her arms, a sudden spasm trembled her body violently as the spate of memories previously withheld flooded out of her. “No” she cried meekly, blinking away another wave of tears. Her heart ached of grief, struggling to pull away from her chest. Flashes of the horror thrust themselves through her closed eyes and into her vision. There was no blood, no gore, no incorrigible imagery forever burned into memory. Just a moment when the communication link dropped; a distant silence followed by a sickening thud from miles away. Fire and smoke blooming toward that solid blue, mourning for the life of the past.

I like the "head reeled back", but I don't like the use of "trembled". I'd use "shook". Also, watch your punctuation on dialogue. "No," she cried, etc. Her heart should probably ache with grief (another near-cliche), but the "struggling to pull away from her chest" is an interesting choice of words and I kinda like it. I'd remove "and into her vision", since it's clear what you mean simply with "through her closed eyes". You're reducing the sentence's effectiveness by over-explaining it—that's something I notice with this work as a whole; you don't leave enough to me, the reader, so I feel irritated firstly that you're not letting me imagine anything for myself, and secondly that you're assuming my level of intelligence is very low and everything needs to be explained. Far better to leave some things up to my imagination. The rest of that paragraph is very good in my opinion. It's intriguing, simply written, and leaves the reader wondering. Just the opposite to the rest so far (;

• “No.” she shivered, pushed her knees together tightly, pulled the sleeves around her shoulders while short-cut nails dug across flesh. The air felt saturated with death, remorse. Her breathing became harder and faster. The moment of fatality replayed itself before her; the moment when she felt him gone, already journeying to oblivion, when she felt her pulse stopped, when the world stopped spinning. “No no no.” She buried her head deeper into the cavity between her arms, eyelids trembled, shutting on the incessant tears now rolling across her smooth, voluptuous cheek to end hanging on her sharp, pointed chin. The tickling sensation barely felt as they trickle down between her breasts as blood dribbled across the folds of the bed sheet.

Firstly, "she shivered" should have a capital on "she". Secondly, once again the initial sentence is much too long. If you're going to have semirelated clauses like that, you need to use semicolons, rather than commas, but I'd suggest at least breaking it into two sentences. I understand the use of semirelated clauses to give a feeling of sequence, because I do it all the time, but it is possible to overuse it quite easily. I'd suggest having a full-stop after "shoulders", and treating the next clause in the same way as the others, but as a new sentence, rather than having a conjunction. Ie, "...across her shoulders. Short-cut nails dug against her flesh." I added in "her" to the last sentence as well, to make it flow a little better and make it less impersonal.

Conversely, up until "spinning" everything is all good. The use of commas, and what would ordinarily be an overly-long sentence, works very well to create the effect of semi-panic, because of its speed, and the fact it reads like a train of thought. I would, however, lose the phrase "journeying to oblivion". Cliche city again.

After "No no no" (I might use commas between those "nos", but that's up to you) there's another very long sentence though. It needs shortening also, and I'd recommend some semicolons as well. You get the idea by now I imagine. Change "trembled" to "trembling maybe", and definitely get rid of the adjectives that are choking the life out of the sentence. If you need to let us know she has smooth, voluptuous cheeks and a sharp, pointed chin, find somewhere more convenient to slip in the occasional description. As it is, you're overdoing it. Remember, you can imply these things without requiring direct description, and the reader will still integrate them into his or her image of the character in question.

The last sentence looks very rushed. It's grammatically poor, and perhaps a little long. Look at reworking it; I feel like I shouldn't comment at the moment because it's not properly written.

So, that's my commentary, and no one else had better ask for a critique for at least a week. I've strained my critique muscle writing this.

[deadguy]

Yeah, don't forget to leave something to the imagination. Good Example: Anne Rice is fantastic for writing just enough to get you started. Bad Example: Tom Clancy can get far too detailed in is descriptions, and it can drag out out of the flow sometimes. That's not to say he's a bad writer, just sometimes too much is too much.

[LoCo]

I liked it, it's very discriptive, the only thing I can say i don't like is that maybe it's a bit too discriptive ... that sounds like I'm saying it's good and it's bad, but really, the discriptions are good very good. Just maybe a bit too many of them.

I like the idea of giving info of why she is sad mixed in with her feeling sad, I like it better the the flashback method.

[Bnonn]

A couple of people may recognise this, but it's not widely known so I'll post it here. It's a passage I had to write as part of my application for Media Arts (which I have since stopped doing in favour of a job) last year. There was a selection of various subjects which could be used, with a 500 word limit, and this one was "A plate of salad sits in the sun." Since all the subjects were either dreary or just plain uninspired, I decided to take the stupidest one, and force it to be as silly as possible.

• ‘I’m going brown!’ Apple’s cry was distressed.
  ‘Already? You can’t be!’
  ‘I am!’ Apple wailed. ‘Look at me—I’m practically inedible!’
  ‘Oh you’re not dear, you look lovely,’ Beetroot admonished.
  ‘No I don’t; I’m going all dry around the bits where they cut my pips out.’
  ‘Hush your whining.’ From somewhere behind Lettuce there was a snort. ‘You’re fine.’
  Carrot scrutinised Apple critically. ‘He looks a wee bit off actually,’ he dissented apologetically.
  ‘It’s easy for you to talk, Avocado,’ Lettuce grumbled. ‘You’re conveniently placed in the shelter of my succulently green and rapidly desiccating leaves. Just wait till the sun moves, then see how you fare out of the shade. You’ll be brown and disgusting in minutes, I swear.’
  ‘By that stage, my dear lettuce, you will be either eaten by birds or dry and withered, so I’d shut my mouth if I were you.’
  ‘Oh please you two, would you stop your bickering?’ Carrot did his best to glare.
  Beetroot glanced worriedly across the table and was met with a frosty gaze from Potato Salad.
  ‘What are you looking at?’
  ‘It’s your eggs,’ Beetroot explained.
  ‘My eggs are fine.’
  ‘I can smell them from here,’ Avocado announced, wrinkling his nose and sniffing unkindly.
  ‘Of course you can,’ Potato Salad grumped defensively. ‘Everyone knows Avocados have an excellent sense of smell.’
  ‘They’re going off,’ Avocado sneered. ‘No one’s gonna eat you now—you’ll be thrown out with Apple.’
  Beetroot gasped. ‘Avocado, you mind your manners!’
  ‘Listen lady, in another hour you’ll be pale and papery and they’ll chuck you out with Lettuce, on top of Apple and Potato Salad.’
  Beetroot went a darker shade of puce. ‘How dare you!’
  Carrot glowered. ‘And then you’ll go brown and horrible too, Avocado, and—’
  ‘Ssh!’
  ‘Don’t you tell me—’
  ‘Someone’s coming!’

[Seeker]

Ha ha. It has been a long time since I have read anything like this. It is funny.

[Dan Van Crone]

Moments are the best, but they're only temporary. The current moment ends and life resumes until the next one comes along. It could takes days or weeks before another one arrives. The sort of moments when you're with someone and you wish you could just throw an anchor in the water and come to stop in time. You wouldn't start to get tired and the sun would never arrive. When everything you said gets listened to and everything that is said to you gets heard. When you know you'll never run out of things to say.

When you have that someone exactly where and how you want them and you want it to stay that way.

[Omi-kun]

Thanks Bnonn, I couldn't have asked for a more indepth critique than that, and certainly more feed back than all of my other friends and teachers have provided. The only thing I have an objection to are some of the cliches, which I want to keep unless I can find more creative alternative (I haven't read too many books with those descriptions, but thanks for letting me know they are that).

I'd say I've gotten another step or two since last time, which didn't have any short breaks. To be honest, it was more or less a spur of the moment writing (duh) but I spent a couple of hours crafting it, and piecing whatever I happened to think up (several words I didn't even know until after I wrote it and looked it up).

And the last of my defense is that I liked Tom Clancy, but I'll definetly buy a book or two of Anne Rice. I guess I just have a greater affection for a more descriptive narrative style. Shogun and War and Peace ranks fairly high in my preference heiarchy. And is Hyperion a good book by your standards? It happens to be my favorite and I really enjoyed the narrative as well. The Dune saga too, a mask of "light-drinking black" was, imo, a very creative description.

Again, thank you very much Bnonn, I've only English for a little less than half my life, almost 8 years, so I kind of still rely on Word for some of the grammar checkings

[Bnonn]

Gee, I never realised English was your second language! To be honest, I haven't read very many books. I read voraciously when I was younger, but I've found that the internet, work, and other hobbies have taken up the time I used to devote to this. So I can't comment on Hyperion, I'm afraid. Dune I liked, but thought to be somewhat wordy. Obviously we just prefer different styles, and I'd far recommend you pursue your own style than try to fit your writing to a subjective critique by me. I'm glad you found my comments helpful, though (:

[Omi-kun]

Yeah, my first is Chinese, cheifly Cantonese, in which I have the skills below that of a kindergardener now, and I can't write it anymore, so English has become my dominant language. Suffice to say even I am a lot better than many of my friends, if not teachers.

I reread your critique again, and it's just what I needed. You hid the nail on a lot of what you said, I was trying to make it sound complicated and, uh, erudite. I've been doing this for years, but I'm learning. And I was going to cut down a lot of the details, but after a while I thought it must just be our preferences (since I really did like Tom Clancy, and elaborate descriptions of things, they give me a sense of clarity instead of darkness that I have to fill. I guess where you find comfort in room for imagination I find insecurity in the void). But thanks again, and I'll repost it once I add some more.

oh, and luster is spelled correctly, just not in the British fashion

[Bnonn]

Oh, yeah I thought maybe luster was spelled like that in the US, but it just looked so wrong compared to other words like centre/center. For some reason it looked like some kind of participle of lust.

Heh.

[ionfish]

On that rather picky note, I thought I'd just point out a teeny little mistake with yours, Bnonn:

"Just wait till the sun moves, then see how you fair out of the shade."

I think this should be 'fare'.

[Bnonn]

Heh, ta (:

[bluevorlon]

Another random poetic fragment from the deep recesses of my head, using that line I remembered earlier in this thread, then promptly forgot, and have now remembered again and incorporated into verse...

---

Spin images in my brain,
All of whatever,
Of you left behind,
Splice a reel of celluloid ,
Into my mind,
You said you would,
So make it real,
And if snowstorms,
Can convince me now,
That all is white,
Then for that,
If nothing else,
I'll drink to you

----

[Seeker]

Since I haven't been able to connect to IRC in over two weeks, and Messenger in three days, I have decided to go ahead and post what I wrote up. If any of you have any type of suggestions, comments, or even critics, please do not hesitate to post them.

Insanity

How can we define insanity? When can we truly say when you have lost your mind?
Most of the doctors are more insane than their patients.
As long as you have the power to do so, you can be insane, call everyone else senseless, and yet not get taken by the doctors to be 'treated'.
Sometimes those treatments just drive you even more insane.
Everyone has a little bit of insanity in them.

[Alliance]

ok, its time i come along and out into the darkness of the light:
--- true story ---
TIMES OF NO CONECTION

it first happened when i was 2 or 3, i cant remember, i was playing wiht a friend, i climbed up a pole, it was griesy on the top, i slipped of, and fell to the ground.

i remember a great pain, and then nothing, no pain, no sound, no light, only him, the man.

dressed like a monk in black, his face bearly visible, he was frowning, his eyes covered in a shroud of darkness, his left hand, so white and cold sent out to me, while the other lay still on the tower.

THE TOWER was the highest building in-front of the fog, it was 100 meters high, with a ball on the top, the ball ha a cut in the middle, and blue light was beaming out in all directions, like pulses, jumping out and whaling as they fly into their dark.

THEIR DARKwas the other place, when i some times visit at sleep, from it you can see the tower, the man with his hand on the tower, and me, on the floor, looking at him, i did not move, but the man seemed to want to move, but as if a spell was cased on him, he stayed there, forever, in the heavens the blue pulses would disapear into the ball, and be shot out again, in a ever lasting circle.

i was again looking at the black man, i sent my hand to touch him.
he as cold, very cold, yet he smilied when i touched him, as-if he had never smilied before, he was suprised i did not pull my hand, i liked them man, he began to lead my to the fog, he looked down at me when his dark eyes, they began to glow in dark blue...

then he lifted his other hand sky-wards, and as if magic, we wher in hell.

i asked him what i had done to deserve imortal damnation, he replied in his ever so low voice: " all who lived, all who prosperd in life yet never knew of god are sent here".

i do not question him, i seem happy to be here, but as i leave his hand, a burst of light hits me, and i return to the living.

my head hurts, i'm in my bed, my white cat to my side.


when i was young i got a hea concusion, from then i have these kind of dreames once in a while.

[ionfish]

Thread worth reviving; words fitted.


Jumble

Just a jumble of words, rainbow colours stitched across the inside of my eyes with the volume so loud it hurts. Frantically I run my fingers down the threads looking for something; for what I’ve lost. A word, a thought, a dream – a snatch of song.

No guarantees. Is this all it is, in the end? Blind running in search of – what? Feedback sparks inside my cerebellum, then silence and I’m afraid because at least when I’m screaming there’s somewhere for the thing inside me to go.

[Numenor]

A blackness of magnitude to make pitch blinding.
An absence of thought and emotion.
No use for a compass and no need for a conscience, perhaps fundamental truths are of this persuasion; dire misunderstandings for sinning in innocence.
A lack of anything rather than majority of interpretation.
Should I happen on this place of mind I would know that this is where my soul lies.
But should these truths indeed dwell inside my soul, then how will I find them before my eyes?
Or am I forever doomed to vision of falsehood?

[LoCo]

The Other One.

Fear was the only thing keeping her going. The dreaful events of the last two days were just a blur. The events of five minutes ago however, were much to clear.

She wasn't afread for herself, but for her sister. She could still see, in her mind, the image of her sister lying on the pier. Her left arm clutching a small twig. While her other arm, held out of the water only by the sleeve of her top, swayed over the edge. In the hand no longer part of her body, was the reason for all of this. The reason that two days ago death had started it's hunt.

Feona was brought out of her thoughts by the blaring of a siren, the Enforcers were on their way to the docks. She would have to run faster if she had any hope of bringing her sister back ...

[AcolyteOfDeath]

The Adventures of Mel and RU1

...

I pulled over from the highway and ran over the hitchiker. I was surprised to find that my windshield was not, in fact, covered in blood. The man wore some sort of silvery armour suit, but it soon became apparent to me that he was no man in armour, but in fact, a robot.

"Hey dude. Thanks for the lift," it said as it got in the passenger's seat.

"No problem. Where you going?"

"East."

Not too talkative for a robot. It was all right, I never liked talkative robots.

"Any particular place?" I asked, looking at him over my shades.

"East is fine."

"Cool. What's your name by the way?"

"RU1"

"I'm Mel. Nice to meetcha."

As I started up the engine I had the strangest feeling that I was about to embark on some sort of wild existentialistic odyssey. And with a robot riding shotgun who knew where we'd end up...?

[LoCo]

Errr ... "I pulled over from the highway and ran over the hitchiker." Right? Am I to take it that you went FOR the hitchhicker?

Sorry if I missed something here, but you just ran over the robot and suddenly he is gtting into your car ... no stopping? no "are you alright?" Car not smashed a bit from running into a body of metal?

[Jah-Diel]

I don't really care for the content of the above Adventures. However, I am interested why you invented the term "existentialistic" instead of using existentialist (which serves as noun and adjective).

[AcolyteOfDeath]

Bounty

"When I woke up I found a midget with a fedora sitting at the foot of my bed with a bounty with my name on it. It was when my vision cleared enough to see the amount on my head that I knew that it was going to be a very, VERY bad day..."

[blackjack]

The gunman sat and watched every eye sweep him up and down.

It had happened before. He bore it with an easy grace that spoke of familiarity, acceptance, boredom. He knew his kind was a rarity, and knew that as a rule they were feared for their power and the control they held over it. So, though he could have done any number of things - threatened them, hidden from them, run away from them - he sat, and smoked, and watched the silvery coils dance in the air.

It wasn't him that held their attention. He was not an imposing man. Average height, average build, his only defining features his deep eyes sunk into a face that looked less grown than eroded and chiseled. Like many, his hands were calloused and dirty, but it was a blackish powder that covered his long and nimble fingers, not the grit of the desert. He wore the coat, slit down the sides in the usual fashion, that had become an unwritten uniform of those who followed the way of the gun, its wear and tear recognizable as the mark of the desert vagabond. These things marked him as a gunman, but it was not these which held their attentions so raptly.

It was the guns, certainly. The coat had fallen so that the steel visible, out in the open air for anyone to see, and he had made no attempt to rearrange it because this would be hiding, and hiding was not his way.

They were huge things, nearly as long as his forearm, jammed into worn leather holsters that looked far too small to hold such instruments. The grips protruded out the tops, shaped for his hands alone, made of a deep red wood that shone with an inner fire despite the wear on them from where his hands had slid down to them endless times and the marks of desert cruelty. The metal was a dark gray, dull but nowhere near lifeless, which too spoke of draw after draw, shot after shot, its matte finish evocative of the death that they could inflict. But they were not just objects - anyone who looked could see this. Not guns, but beasts; not metal and wood but something which lived and beathed and ate in its own way. They were waiting, poised on the edge of action, ready to leap into the hands of their master, ready to kill or save, ready to do his bidding, despite the hardships they had endured and the blood they dreamt about as they slept fitfully in their worn leather. The beasts, not the guns, not the man, was what held the eyes of all those who looked.

He sat silently, watching the smoke turn, and without looking down gently reached a hand to caress the butt of one gun and feel the stirring of hungry life inside it. And then, still without looking, he slowly drew one, hefting its remarkable weight in his hand, lifted it and gently set it on the table in front of him. It was only then that he looked down, regarded the gun, and held a silent congress with it before sliding it back down to its home, where it once again stood ready, as every eye followed the movements with what might have been terror.

[Tamed]

Here's a little something I wrote over the summer:

The smell of rust and age-worn metal escaped the length of the barrel and filled the man’s nostrils, subduing him. Cold, pale fingers skimmed the trigger of the old shotgun, the single-shot his grandfather had given him before the man decided change was a good thing, before change would eventually define him.

Change had failed in turning his road home, the man thought ironically. Grasping the oak ended handle, he shifted the gun from his lap, turning it on its end. He let it stay that way, a shell lingering in his free hand, mulling over clouded possibilities. Smoke clung to the air in the small room like a mist, for the man had retired to his pipe eventually before de-bagging the weapon he was sure would end his life. A small lamp sat in the corner on the floor, the darkness threatening to overwhelm its meager, non-vivid light.

He held the shell up, half examining it, half seeing the shell explode into a swarm of bee-bee’s before he even allowed his finger to reach the rusted trigger or load the cache.

A smile curled at the corner of his lips. He decided it wasn’t out of sheer admiration of the moment; his wits had been that of a falling dam. His pipe had sought to that. He would never admit to the fact that he was crazy. There was always an excuse.

After a moment’s consideration, the man sat up so that the end of the barrel faced him. Releasing the cache and loading the barrel, every thought, every whisper of dark intent fled from him. Long ago, he might have given that a name. Now, everything defied meaning. Like the shell, he thought. Alone in the darkness, barrel to his mouth, he was a shell, lifeless and empty.

Time froze, and there was a sudden hint of movement; whether or not the man meant to pull the trigger, he would never live to tell. The gun, age worn and rusted, fell to the floor.

A cat stopped purring from the opposite room, eyes wide and scanning the darkness. It found the source of the clamor, the madness, and the shell of the man that lay right in the middle of it.

The cat strode up to the man, its head rubbing the man’s fingers, expectation and hope mirrored in its eyes.
Those hands were as cold and pale as death, and sticky with blood. The cat purred anew, the white fur of its muzzle now dotted with red.

[TheGeneral]

I was watching Armageddon, and it hit me how much work it takes for us humans to blow up stuff, and yet space can do it with just a rock...
------
Tomilson slammed the report down on the console next to him, causing part of the staff of the control room to suddenly look up at him. They were all fairly confused; didn't they just have another success hit?

“Dammit, people! Do you all realize that that NEO's callsign was in the triple digits?”

A few of the crew, knowing better not to speak, shifted uncomfortably. The radar image of what was left of Near-Earth Object E-102 still reflected off Dan Tomilson's glasses from the large overhead screens around him in Mission Control.

“Clarkson! Could you tell us what that means?”

It was pretty much a rhetorical question, as there wasn't a person in the room who didn't know what it meant, but Clarkson answered anyway.

“It means, sir, that... well, it means that NEO E-102 is the 102nd object to become a dangerous threat this year.”

“That's right! Now, tell me, does anyone find that a bit... odd?!”

The crew continued to shift uncomfortably.

“Of course you all do! The numbers of NEO objects have been rising ever since the Lunar Protection Program has been established, and this is the highest number yet! Would someone tell me what the hell is going on?!”

Clarkson started rubbing his temples; something he did when he was anxious.

“We don't know sir, just like you don't. All we know is that 95% of these NEO's are coming from the Asteriod Belt, and we can't figure out why.”

“No kiddin'.” Tomilson sighed. This burst of anger wasn't going to get him anywhere, anyway. He looked down at his coffee mug and adjusted his glasses.

“I'm going to go get a refill. And I'm... sorry I acted up so much, crew. It's the stress, or something. I'll be back.”

Dan turned around and was just about to leave Mission Control when the plasma screen to his left suddenly turned green and began dumping all kinds of readouts. At first he wasn't concerned; green meant one of the Project satellites had picked up some space traffic- Mission Control didn't want to be alerted of every single flying object in space, only the dangerous ones on a collision course- but then he noticed which satellite had actually picked it up.

“What the- Clarkson?”

The Project's XO absentmindedly looked up. “Yes, sir?”

“The Wood satellite is still watching the asteroid belt, right?”

“The Wood Deep Space Telescopes? Sure, why, sir?”

“Because it's picking up an artificial. Out in the field.”

Clarkson snapped to reality. “What?”

“Yeah. Someone put the image feed on the main screen.”

A few seconds, and the work of five satellites orbiting Mars could be seen: A slightly-fuzzy live video feed of the asteroid field. The space junk of the solar system could be seen lazily floating along, only along for the ride because the Sun felt like it. Then, suddenly, a deep-blue flame of light appeared near the port side of the image.

“Was that... a fusion torch engine firing?”

Tomilson nodded. “There is no human vessel out in the asteroid belt, people. I think we just met our first neighbors.”

Soon after the firing of the engine, however, an asteroid in the same spot as the extrasolar vessel suddenly changed course, towards Earth.

“Wait a minute. What just happened?”

Clarskson shook his head. “Either that asteroid just grew a fusion induction drive, sir, or we just found out why so many NEOs are coming towards us.”

“You mean those fuckers are throwing them at us?”
-----------

It was done pretty quickly, so pardon the lack of description, character development, blah, blah, blah.

TheGeneral

[LoCo]

Nice, I like it. My only gripe is that it's not exactaly original, but it's not a full blow story so I don't see it as too much of a problem.

[TheGeneral]

That's partially why I decided not to make it one. It sounded pretty cleched as I was writing it, so I decided to leave it.

TheGeneral

[Handarazuur]

[Warning: May contain expletives.]

The last 100 years of Lawrence Maxwell's life were his happiest.
The last second of Eric Irvine's life was miserable.

Life is a deck of cards. It's all the luck of the draw. Sometimes you're Lawrence. Sometimes you're Eric. Life is cruel. That there are ten Erics to every Lawrence proves this undoubtedly.

Don't try to run away from misery. The bitch will always trip you up one way or the other.

Unless you're Lawrence Maxwell.

Or you're severely paranoid. Being both helps, but Lawrence was never paranoid in his life. Well, mostly. His one fear was that Eric Irvine would outlive him. They both died at 2:23am and 34 seconds. But Eric's last second was spent with a frown, because he was paranoid of dying first, and gave misery the chance to sneak up on him.

Life's like a badly designed chocolate. It looks like shit at first, but is actually a very sweet thing. Lawrence knew this. He never cared if things were down, or if there was anything wrong with him, or if it rained. He always wore a smile. Even as he died, he was thinking of how good his life had been.

That's the power of optimism. The glass is only half full until you fill it.

[Rodimus]

The new-green tips form a swaying regiment stretched far and wide, and only when he passes by each row can he look down the columns that were sown straight by machine. The field marches southward, straightening out so that with each line it keeps its paces opposite the train’s, each row a blur after each, slowing and quickening as the hills pass by. They meter the steps of the neat lines and press them onward and forward, and farther away from him.

From behind the glass he keeps his eyes fixed on this changing picture as it fades into warmth from the city and grows older and well worn here. In the distance, the mountains are a purple haze which boil lightly from the earth, and become more substantial as land falls into ranches and farms and leveler ground. The rail fences join into continuity from dividing into far reaching stretches that travel over the horizon.

In the peaceful landscape of his mind, the 3pm to Matteson rushes through. The whistle of the train punctuates the rhythmic procession, the noise and motion, the intermittent footfalls of steel wheels meeting track joints. There arises a strange moment of peace in its wake, and suddenly a reply from every flat of akward, dissonant cawings and thumps of the air as bodies go up in a maddening flutter of black. They wheel about in directionless rage against the intrusion and light in the distant trees. The northbound train passes noisily by. Then, in another flutter of rage, now against the diseased lines, stubbornly standing at arms, the pests descend to their work in the dirt of the neat spaces, or, in defiance against the efforts of men, on their quiet partners fixed crucified in the field.

The man on the train swiftly leaves them to their labor, gaining distance with each crest and fall. He hunches over, elbows pressed solidly against knees, down in his seat, and he removes his eyes, reluctantly, from the entirety of the scene as silence settles in and rests its weight down heavily upon him.


---some stuff happens here---

He smiled at the thought that it was the worst run of irony, if that was the right word for it. The crowd was gathered at the courthouse steps- the whole town it looked like. But on the stage, in front of everyone, there they were, young enough.

There had been a great parade, great by Matteson standards, and the marshal stood apart, facing the crowd, and behind him, a few steps up stood the day's celebrities. They stood beneath the shadow of the spirit Justice, two apiece, in rigid formation. There they stood with chests thrust out and stars spangled across them, blessed above the crowd. They stood next to the suited man behind the podium who looked down his papers and shuffled them and, after, coughed and turned his face up to the expectant congregation.

He knew what was to be said before the man’s original breath was spent. The same had been done to him, and when he was a boy, he had done the same. He had climbed atop a long cedar bench in an oak lined hall, and there he had done it: to speak, just after being spoken to, after the infectious spirit had passed into him, and it passed through his lips.

Now…now he did not feel much like listening and so turned his head away from it, to study the empty field across the street, but after a moment could not tell which place disturbed him more. The field had been left to thistle and bush, but parts, here and there were bare. The field descended, and he could see where rain dug into the tan baked topsoil, exposing a fresh rush of red beneath. The field grew and ran in confusion, in all directions, existing uncomfortably that it lay directly across from such a grand space, one that so unbalanced the scale centered on the street.

Throughout the speech, he kept his eyes upon the field, that field which he was sure some of the boys would cross soon after the speech was done. They all came dressed up, in their best, and he waited till everything was over to see who would risk polished shoe and spotless trouser cuff to get across instead of taking another way home. Some did. They stood in a group on the curb, lingering for a while before the dark shimmering street, and then took a tentative step. One after another they touched toe to the sun-hot asphalt, and lifted up to see if the road, that had been unsettled in the heat of the day, had taken to their soles.


----Still a WIP though. I work on it in between short story projects and it's meant to be in that well worn tradition of the American anti-war novel

[ps, it does change tense, which is done in the omitted structure]

[thesamonthemoon]

Life's like a badly designed chocolate. It looks like shit at first, but is actually a very sweet thing.

That is really a brilliant line.

[Handarazuur]

Perhaps the only brilliant line I'll ever come up with.

[Greymist]

Eh, this will suck considering I have no talent but I just decided to write this randomly-ish :o .

...it dropped away into the darkness, nothing uttered of its passing except the sobbing of the small girl who had dropped it.
He pondered what to do for a moment then a sudden urge struck him, what would happen if he followed it?
He found himself leaning over the gaping hole and a slight warm breeze blew against his face then seemed to reverse and draw him down.
He leaned over until horizontal not considering that it wasn't possible too entranced was he by the darkness.
A voice wispered to him "why?", he replyed in a daze "why not?" then fell, nothing left to show his passing except the sobbing of a small girl....

[LoCo]

That's not bad Greymist. You should write mroe often.

I've hear that if you write every day, you get better and better and you come up with many ideas. While I have been trying this, I can't say I've been very succesful. I tell you what ... I'll bug you to write every day, and in the prosses I'll be bugging myself

[Bnonn]

It entirely depends what you're writing, and how, in my experience.

The better you become, the harder it is, and writing in the moment is quite difficult. It's much easier to have medium-term plans.

[Handarazuur]

Life is like a Big Mac. It's big, it's messy, and it inevitably falls apart on you.