Let me open this blog entry by stating that I have no idea where it is headed. That's why I am typing it in a wordprocessor, I'll upload it to the correct blogsite later on. (writing? higher thoughts on consciousness and life? or petulant whining?)

Ok, it's probably not the petulant whining, but the other two are open game right now. Although I'm leaning towards setting out a rudimentary outline for the script I'm supposed to be creating in April. (April? what!?!? I work in public practice accounting, taxation time in Canada, April is NOT a good month to undertake something like this. Oh well, signed up, too late now.)


So here's what I have so far on the storyline I was thinking of transmuting in to a script, (it might work better)

*********************
“Mike, we've got a problem!” Jamie's voice sounded panicked over the handheld radio they all carried as part of their park ranger outfit.

Jamie's voice snapped Mike out of the reverie he had sunken into while hiking to the top of the ranger tower on Madge's Hill. The old wooden firewatch tower loomed tall over the surrounding countryside as Mike broke from the treeline and started across the half mile firebreak line surrounding the tower. He hauled the radio out of it's holster and brought it up, “What's up kid?”

The only reply he got from the radio was a shriek of static and white noise. Odd, he thought, that almost sounded like deliberate interference. Making a mental note to try again from the top of the tower where there was a better line of sight to the dam where Jamie was supposed to be marking water levels and running the standard assessment tests on the resivioir that was the water supply for the town of Northfork down the valley.

*******************************

Not a bad opening, but obviously it's not in Script format. Hold on a few while I go and put it up in the right format.

Here's the next scene while we're at it.

********************************
Jamie had reached the top of the dam and stood dumfounded, looking out over what was supposed to be several miles of placid water. The reservoir was supposedly complete inert, collecting the watershed of the surrounding valleys into a single body of water, the dam holding it all back, directing the flows out to the town down the valley, as well as providing hydro-electic power from the sluice gates.

Placid?..The questioning thought flitted whimsically across his mind as Jamie looked out over cubic miles of lakewater apparently sitting at a full rolling boil. What the hell is going on here? He reached out to pull the sampling station up out of the water, and he yelped as his fingers made contact with the hot chain.

Nursing a sore left hand, Jamie eased his gloves on and once again reached out for the chain to pull up the sampling station, realizing as he did so that the evident heat in the water was likely to have completely destroyed any effectiveness of the test kit. As the plastic cage came into view, Jamie sighed in resignation, looking forelornly at the melted twisted plastic remains.
Gingerly extracting the only intact instrument from the tangled mess, he noted that the temperature was a solid 100 degrees celcius, so apparently the water was supposed to be boiling. But why? What could cause several acres of water to come to a boil?

Perplexed, Jamie stood and started to climb down the ladder to the base of the dam, on his way to check the power-substation before heading back to base.

*********************


Now I have to figure out how to use the program Celtx.
See you all later.

Andre.

Refocusing the past

October, 27, 2009.

That was the date of the first post on here.  I just reread it and realized that while my conscious intentions of late were to use this place to air my creative jaunts, the original stated purpose was to give those pesky little voices in my head somewhere to be heard. Nothing to do with my super-ego at all, but rather a sandbox for Andre Nonymous' back brain personalities to get up, get out and play.

I have to go re-read some other things as well, if you read it and it's missing later, I've nuked it.  If you really wanted to see it again, e-mail me I'"ve got it stashed around here somewhere in an archive.

Anyhow, not into typing right now, gotta get to work.

Until later.

Andre.

The Wrimo Report

Hey y'all, since I can't justify submitting this to the actual NaNoWriMo site, so I thought I'd put up my wrimo report  here for the edification of....  well....  ok, who am I kidding, it's for me.  I had to put it in perspective so that I can  get on with my life, and with my story.

maybe after this I'll put up the next chapter, first draft anyhow, it'll likely get completely cut and re-written before I feel it's good enough for anyone else to read.

So, the WriMo report.

I have a crazy relative, she's my mom.  Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like she rants and should be locked up.  After all, doing so would deprive so many of us of a much needed and loved crazy person in our lives.  But, see, the thing here is that she has always been not normal as defined by society.  I blame her for the voices.  The voices made me do it!  I realize that that sounds like a lame excuse, but those same voices that took root in my mind early on in formative years are still there.  And no amount of social programming appears to be able to drive them into submission.

And so, come late October life is stressing, children are teething (after both toddlers wrapping up the most recent influenza bout), and the voices in my head are starting to sound saner than I am feeling.

Time to round up the good old boys and hit the bars, ... , umm, nope, they've all grown up, moved away, and had kids of their own, that ain't gonna work.
How about ...  Nope, that's out as well,
Then from the next office a little voice starts arguing with itself,
"you don't have time!"
"But I want to...  please?"
"No, we agreed to be sensible, besides you already have three on the go and your publishers want the first two in by the end of November!"
"I don't care, I"ll just do it behind my back, see if I care.  And besides, I can't stop me anyhow."

Realizing that I had followed that entire conversation without once losing track of what was happening, I began to worry, really worry.  However, being less conservative than I should sometimes, I poked my head around the corner to ask if everything was alright.
The answer came back, as sane as you please, "Yup, just trying to talk myself into/out of NaNoWriMo this year."
"Oh, fair enough.  I'll leave you to it then."

NaNoWriMo?  Time to get Google online, ....,  Ahhhh, there it is....  ohhhhh ...  a place for those voices to burst out of my head, and if I do it right, they'll hit the page and it'll all be ok.

The rest is history as they say, late nights, early mornings, kids were sick throughout, family life was even more demanding than usual, and of course it didn't help that my wife and I were having troubles at the beginning of the month.
But ... with 3 days remaining, I hit 50,000 and didn't notice.  At about noon on the final day I uploaded the whole manuscript and verified at just over 51 thousand, with about 25k left to wrap up the book.

So yeah, it was crazy, it was demanding and draining, and nobody else understands why in creation I would undertake such a pointless task, but to me there was purpose, and the voices that refuse to behave..?  Well, at least they're mollified with being able to be heard, and from that they've agreed not to try to twist me into a lunatic.  So I guess it's a wash.

Goodnight,

Andre.

Poetry? Yeah, nope. Sorry, not poetic. I tried.

I was going to try a shot at poetry this morning, a sonnet to my beautiful wife?  a limerick to my 12 year old son who keeps getting up each morning, with only a minimal amount of procrastination, I don't really know.  but poetry is just not in my purview today.  Sorry.

I don't look like a poet, I don't have the angst to be a good poet, it's supposed to be 5-10 degrees all week, sunny and raining in turns, it's January for crying out loud.  In Canada!  a week of positive temperatures?  that's nuts, where is the world going?

I'm going to blast through a quick short on this later on today and post it next. later on this afternoon.

I've gotta get to work in order to justify the time for it tho.  Until then, stay cool.  *grin*

Andre.

One Small Step Forward

Hiya all.

I did it.  I signed up for the free account at Fictionwise and started to take advantage of the giftcertificate that I was awarded.  That's kinda cool.  the down side is that this is yet one more site on this blasted nefarious internet that I have to remember the password to.

Anyhow, it's like one thirty in the morning, and I have to get to sleep here soon.  I'll just leave it at that.

Hugs to all.

Andre.

A momentary lapse into the future.

Hi there, as I was driving, listening to the radio, a song came on about a snowman made of dirty snow, and the treasure he was.

That got me started on the what-if tangent trail.

Treasure, precious metals, titanium, precious metals used... titanium,
Animated figurines, high technology,

What if Frosty the Snowman was actually animated by chains of nano-bots.  They could have been part of the structure of the hat that was found, thus brining him to life when the hat was put on his head?

I'd like to pursue this as a short story sometime, maybe aim for something slightly futuristic, incorporate nature of humanity stuff, sociological assessments, etc.

Right now it's one in the morning, I'm tired as heck, and I have to get up tomorrow.

So until then, I'm off to bed.

Andre.

A Prayer

This is not my prayer, I did not come up with it.  Somebody came up with this one so long ago that it eludes my brief search.
Regardless, it's recital this morning is prudent.

Prayer to St. Michael

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.

or a shorter personal version.
O'Lord lift me up, support me in my hour of need,
St. Michael please protect me from the snares of the evil in this sinful world.
Amen.