Weekend Bonus Burn: Force of Habit

It's daylight. I'm in a café (the Abigail chased me out of the apartment so she can work on a paper). It must be time to write a burning zeppelin post!

Not quite. I do enjoy my weekend lazies.

I don't feel that this week's posts have been quite up to my usual quality, so I'll toss you a bone. Have a look at May 24th's Worlds of Tomorrow, a regular feature at Escape Pod. Worlds of Tomorrow is Escape Pod's movie review (similar features are found at PodCastle and Pseudopod). The episode to which I am directing you discusses the (old) smash hit Armageddon.

I have fond memories of Armageddon. I enjoyed it a great deal, though I liked it's sister-movie, Deep Impact, even better. In fact, 1998 was the year I first discovered that every movie comes out twice, as rival studios aggressively compete to see whose take on a given concept would fair better at the box office.

Although Deep Impact's humanity appealed to my softer side, Armageddon is not without virtue. In his review, Pseudopod host Allister Stuart nails down exactly what was brilliant about Armageddon. If you've seen the movie and want to be confirmed in your good taste or are looking for an excuse to watch it, I recommend Worlds of Tomorrow.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Don't worry, the Abigail and I are fine. No, I'm breaking up with iCafe, the free wireless equipped internet cafe where I once spent my days fruitlessly searching for work, writing, and sending out short stories. I've been forced to retreat to the somewhat less snazzy Happy Doughnut across the street. When there's money in my bank account again, I'll probably go back to my first love, Tart to Tart.

I understand that the proprietors of coffee shops need to make a living, and they do that by selling coffee and sandwiches, not providing a roof and walls for my unemployed self. For fuck's sake, though I'm not costing them any appreciable money by sitting there. My computer doesn't draw that much power, my use of the internet doesn't take up that much bandwith, and my ass doesn't take up that much space. They can afford to be generous. The pricks.

More importantly, this sends me a clear message about what the shop's priorities are. They don't want to be a gathering place for the community, they want to make a buck. When I've got money, they're happy to welcome me, but when I strapped for cash, they toss me out. Well, that's fine, that's their prerogative, but it's a poor way to do business. When I do have money again, I'll take my business somewhere that has never ceased to be welcoming, like Starbucks or Tart to Tart.

I'll call this the aggravating cap to an aggravating week. Hopefully the weekend will be better.

• • •

• Have you ever been kicked out of a coffee shop you were happily writing in by greedy, short-sighted shit-for-brains?
• I know this is mostly my rough week and lack of sleep talking, but is it wrong for me to wish really, really hard for iCafe to burn down?
• Even if I also wish that no one is hurt in the conflaguration?
  

Good Advice

Azathoth

A lonely mother gazing out of the window
Staring at a son that she just can't touch
If at any time he's in a jam she'll be by his side
But he doesn't realize he hurts her so much
But all the praying just ain't helping at all
Cause he can't seem to keep his self out of trouble
So he goes out and he makes a difference the best way he knows how
Another zombie laying cold in the gutter
Listen to me

Don't go chasing Azathoth
Please stick to the demons and the gods that you're used to
I know that you're gonna have it your way or nothing at all
But I think you're moving too fast

Little precious has a natural obsession
For knowledge that he just can't reach
He reads all the books that his mind can handle
But all he can say is baby it's good for me
One day he goes and takes a glimpse in the mirror
But he doesn't recognize his own face
Sanity fading and he doesn't know why
HPL sing him to his final resting place
Ya'll dont'hear me

Don't go chasing Azathoth
Please stick to the demons and the gods that you're used to
I know that you're gonna have it your way or nothing at all
But I think you're moving too fast

Burning Retirement Plans

I have come to an important decision about how I will spend my retirement. When the time comes, the Abigail and I will retreat to a (non-burning) zeppelin with our pet talking dog. From there, we will travel the world having adventures with our grandchildren (or small mentees; I'm not picky).

That's right. I've seen Up. Becca, the Fiancigail, and myself went to see it last Saturday after Becca's birthday party.

I've come to expect a lot from Pixar, but they have not yet failed to exceed and impress. Up is probably the best so far (though I can't claim to have seen everything Pixar has put out; WALL-E, for example, remains a mystery to me) (I'm getting a little too fond if this parentheses-and-semicolon thing; perhaps I should stop).

In addition to painting a picture of my ideal retirement, Up was an example of almost everything right in a story. It had incredibly genuine characters, imperfect but ultimately loveable heroes and a despicable, but ultimately human villain. In terms of the storytelling craft, Up is visually gorgeous, with excellent dialogue and more than adequate pacing (more on that later).

Most importantly, Up is an example of why I write fantastic fiction. On one level, Up is the story of an old man who finds a new reason to live after the death of his wife. On another level, Up is the story of an old man who decides to fly his house (via helium-filled balloons) to South America so he can live in the place he and his deceased wife had always fantasized about settling. These stories are intertwined, so that Carl is literally carrying the memories he can't let go of on his back, and when he chooses between life and death at a crucial moment, it is to let those memories go crashing to the ground and fly away into a brighter future. Symbolism, drama, and a sword fight atop a zeppelin. Golden.

Other highligts of Up (in easy-to-read bullet form!) include:

• Doug. On the one hand, he is a dog who can communicate like a human being, but on the other hand, he still a dog. He has dog concerns and dog reactions. He even tells dog jokes! Talking animals who aren't totally humanized are rare in fiction.
  
• Another rare wonderment Up achieved with ease is compelling geriatric heroism (old guy sword fight for the win)! If you look at most fantastic fiction, you'd get the idea that heroism ends at 30. Not, so Carl proves, not so at all.
  
• Russel: a child character who acts like an actual child, not a small, dumb adult. This alone is worth the price of admission.
  
• Zeppelin!
  

Lest you think I was totally won over by a movie clearly written explicitly for me, Up did have one flaw. Or rather, a difficulty to overcome that it did, perhaps, somewhat inelegantly. On the one hand, Up needed to tell the story of Carl and Ellie quickly and efficiently, so that Carl is a comprehensibly grumpy old man, not just another unpleasant old fart. We need to understand what Carl is sad about, and we need to feel it down to the roots of our hearts. On the other hand, like any fantasy story, Up needs to establish its internal logic as soon as possible, so that we are not shaken out of our suspension of disbelief when something too unexpected happens. Up choose to emphasize the story of Carl and Ellie over establishing its rules, which meant that when houses uproot themselves and begin flying, dogs start talking, and the laws of physics and biology generally start inverting themselves, it's a little more jarring than it could be.

That minor issue aside - and in the final arithmetic, it truly is a minor flaw - Up is a brilliant movie, and I recommend it with my whole heart.

Mourning

Today, the Zeppelin wears black.

It's not the death of David Eddings that has me down - though that's certainly a part of it. Although my father was a fan of the David and Leigh Eddings writing duo, I can only definitively claim to have read one book in the series, Polgara the Sorceress, given to me as a gift by a non-fantasy fan friend. To let you in to the joke: Polgara the Sorceress is a retrospective of one of the Eddings' two epics, the Malloreon, from the point of view of one of it's most mysterious and powerful characters. It's intended to be read by fans of the Mallorean who want an insider's view of the story. It was certainly a weird reading experience.

As an aside, there ought to be a word for reading a series out of order, that sense of displacement and mystery that weirds, rather than ruining, the experience of the books. I've done it twice, and it's a fascinating feeling.

Anyway, what's got me down here at the Burning Zeppelin is a death much closer to home: the death of a story.

Stories are a lot tougher than people. Unlike, say, my brother (not that I've tried any of this with my brother - honest!), a story can have its innards torn out and rearranged, and survive, none the worse (in fact, often the better) for wear. A story can be left in a cabinet with no food, water, or ventillation for years, and still be just as fresh when it comes out as it was when it went in. When part of a story falls off due to a tragic computer accident or lost notebook, the rest doesn't bleed. The stump is smooth and ready to grow again. Stories are tough, but they can die.

About five years ago, I wrote a story called Useless Nick. It was the tale of a future, set in the shadow of an interstellar war. With the war over, the huge intelligent spaceships that had won the war for the good guys - the Behemoths - were gradually being decomissioned and given new jobs. The main characters were a crew tasked with finding M.I.A. ships, repairing whatever damage had caused them to go missing, and bringing them back to earth for reassignment. Useless Nick himself, a cartographer accidentally assigned to the squad, proves his worth communicating to a damaged ship with astrophysical metaphor and becomes part of the crew.

Ever since starting my Burning Rejection Letters Experiment, I've been wanting to find Useless Nick, brush it up, and fire it off. I've switched computers twice since them, leaving both machines practically smoking wrecks in my wake, but I've always been confident that I could find my story in the maze of old data.

No such luck. After about an hour spent poking through ancient files thanks to the magic of firewire, I am forced to concede that Useless Nick is no longer where I thought I'd left it... which means, I fear, that it's nowhere at all. It's all gone. While I've had stories survive long hiatuses, extensive remodeling, and the loss of a few hours (or days) of work, I've never successfully started from scratch. A finished story - a solid piece of fiction - is a such a delicate weave of words and themes, I can't imagine starting again.

So, hats off for Useless Nick. Like the phoenix it may rise from the ashes, but probably not.

• • •

• Have you ever had to accept defeat and admit that a story had gone missing? How did you handle it?
• Any advice for starting a story over from scratch?
• If I know you in real life and you have a copy of Useless Nick, for God's sake, email me!
  

Burning the Midnihg Zeppelin II: Archetypical

Well, here's your post. Just under (over) the wire, and made by an exhausted Zeppeliner. Tomorrow's will be better, but today's exists, and that's what counts.

That isn't to say it's very good. Allow, if you will, me to direct your attention to Alt.Universes, a new and clever blog about fantasy, roleplaying, and writing... hey, that sounds familiar! Fortunately, there's nigh-infinite room in your hearts for blogs. I hope you'll give Alt.Universes a chance.

Specifically, here's a neat post about fantastic archetypes and how to use and abuse them.

Enjoy, and watch this spot tomorrow (later today?) for more burning zeppelin.

Urk!

I beg a thousand pardons for the lack of a zeppelin yesterday.

There will be one today, presently.