Another blog...?

So, I've been thinking and plotting (not a good combination) and I was thinking, what if we had another blog (which would be insane, so don't be afraid to say no) for worldbuilding. In other words, we'd be able to get those random histories of worlds and wars and magicks, and be at peace. You could make magic systems, governments, etc. Because it's insane, I don't care if you guys say no. I'd understand....

Dreaming out the Window

Author's Note: I was watching the Celebrate Youth party from out of my window at work, and I thought about what would happen if it was a young child who couldn't participate. I didn't mean for it to get so depressing, but ideas will do what they will do. Please comment, and if it's too depressing tell me!

She watched the park from her third story window. She could barely see it between two buildings further down the alley, but she watched what she could. She saw a ballon-man giving all the children free balloons, saw them running away in glee, and wished she had a balloon. One of the children taking a balloon threw away a dripping popcicle so he could cling to the string with both hands. She licked her cracked lips and wished she had a popcicle. She saw an infant being carried in its mother's arms, and she wished she had a mother. She saw a girl with a pink bow in her hair on her father's shoulders, and the girl in the third story room wished she was that girl. She was watching so intently that she didn't hear the ominous footsteps coming up behind her, and she was still so dazed that when she heard screaming aimed at her she couldn't understand the words. Only when she was yanked around by her arm and hit with a belt did she hear the words, "Dreaming won't do you any good!" As she was pulled from the room she looked one last time out the window. She saw that a little boy's balloon had flown away, and the balloon-man was giving him another one, and she knew that wasn't true for everyone, so it didn't have to be true for her. But with another slap of the belt and a pull from the room, she was less convinced.

Another Blog? Are you CRAZY?

So I've been thinking. And you know me, (hopefully) and I had this thought that we could make a third blog on which we could just post our story's characters. I think it would be a good reference, a good place to talk about things like naming and descriptions and personalities. If I made a site like this, how many people would use it? (I'd probably just make it anyway, but it's be good to know.) So? Input?

Profundity

I haven't written anything in ages, and I'm beginning to doubt myself, so here's something I wrote in a very short span of time, but I hope you like it. Please comment, and don't be too nice (or too mean... :P). And yes, profundity is a word.

Who is to say a written work is profound? Who is this "official profundity-rater" that decides the worth of a text? To go down in history as "a writer of many profound truths", do we need to shmooze up to him like a common magazine writer? Or can we, as authors, decide for ourselves whether our work is profound or not? I believe this is the right choice, because if a writer decides his work is not profound, he will take it and change it until it is. That way, there will be many more profound writings in the world, much more than if one "profundity-rater" decided what would touch each of our hearts. I believe that choice is ours.

Piano Method for Beginners

The piano is easy. Your first step is to sit down. Obviously a well made bench is good, but a chair or a stool will do, for this once at least. You'll replace it later. Wipe the dust off the top and make another mental note to get a good rag and finish the job in an hour or two. Wear good socks for this. The sustain pedal is too cold for bare feet and too clean for shoes. Press it twice, once gently so that your foot is used to it, once a dash quicker so the piano is used to it. Hold it that second time and listen closely - hear it ring, the string's soft pulse magnified just enough so that the human ear can sense the forgotten memories that others have left there.

You now have permission to touch the keys, but only to make sure they're in tune. If some aren't, it's too late now, but remember to avoid the offending keys. Now look around. Melodies are everywhere. look under your seat, behind the couch across the room, in the painting next to you. You should keep a few with you everywhere, just in case, too. Put them in those socks you're wearing. When you find one, a good one, don't grab it. You need its permission. If it comes down for you, hold it gently between your fingertips. Slowly, gently, reverently, touch a note. Any of them. Now let that melody work for you.

It's always nervous starting out, touching just a note at a time, tapping out a subtle rhythm into a small chant. At first it might just be your right hand, softly floating over the ivory and defining its personality in a flurry of whispering movements, an infant realizing things for the first time. Now it will pull your other hand into the fray - either strongly, a power introduced that the music didn't know it had, a new force that further pushes the piece into a symphony, or, it will be more subtle, one more string of keys, at first being one with the right hand, then slowly pulling and stretching the tone into a double entity, not at peace or at war, not at tension or at comfort, but at something those terms don't understand: Harmony. Either way the music grows, and expands, and matures. It has now become fully conscious of itself, and this is where we have elements of danger. Don't let it get too big, This is not the end or even a climax. That's later, and if you peak early you stand a solid chance of losing everything.

If you manage to tone is down - which is the mark of a true pianist - then your right hand will begin to climb. Let it. It starts on the ladder of keys and deftly moves to a higher rhythm and your left hand begins to bow, perhaps in total submission, to a sense of superiority. Remind the left that it isn't worthless, but this is the right's shining solo, and jealousy is pointless. Now bring it back down again, not all at once, small , individual steps that cascade into a solid cadence once the finger join together. Add one more melody between the hands to make it bigger than it was before.

This is where the melody begins to fight you, and this is how music escalates into a war. It's a battle of fingertips and piano keys, a flurry of knuckles in black and white. The sound separates itself from your hands, doing things whether you wanted to or not, and just when things seem beyond your control, withdraw -

and the music will stop. The piano is in submission once more. Allow a few seconds for silence to reverberate through the room. Take a breath, because you're nearly there. Press that first note again, then again as though you were starting piece over again. But don't. Go the opposite direction, catching the Melody in a deep bass voice as the right sings its chorus to remember, to paint the picture of what it once was. Finally, let the essence of the song - that weary spirit that grew for you and let you tame it - let go of it. It no longer has room to grow, but will settle into your lap. Comfort it, caress it one last time, and end on a chord.

Written at Writer's at Harriman

The Grey Haired Man

The grey haired man stood, staring out the 12th story window, blinds opened to flood the room with the evening light. Massive panes of glass, across the room, made believe they were invincible, guardians against the city lights. The setting sun turned shadows from the buildings into darkened claws that would no doubt consume people, cars and streetlights, feeding them to a black monster past the horizon. The desk behind him, normally so tidy, the product of obsessive dusting, polishing, arranging, now so lonely, covered in crumpled papers stained by coffee rings and an untouched nametag. Jeremiah Kingston. He hadn’t slept in the last three days, showed in his in his bloodshot eyes and worn face. Dark stubble on his chin had begun to thicken. Three weeks- three weeks of writing and signing and calling and heaven knows everything he’d worked on. And it ended in nothing. The deal had been broken by the associate company. There had been full out war between corporations, with Jeremiah at the front lines. He told the directors that he had the upper hand, that he had an unbreakable case. But with such surety in his company comes the risk. If someone is that certain, stakes inevitably go upwards in the hectic, business defined world of Wall Street. And someone like him- at the height of his game, at the peak of his potential- he wasn’t allowed to fail. He knew there would be consequences worse than death in this gambit. The city outside was hushed, and the earth began to slowly recede from him. Up here, in the darkened New York skyline, he was alone, a failure society had thrown in the windy cloudless summits. A knock on the door behind him. A pause. The man didn’t turn to look and see who entered without invitation. It didn’t matter. The sound of a paper sliding onto his desk, then the click and knock of the door closing once more. The man had one more thought. He wondered how simple it would be to break the window’s reinforced glass.

Written at Writer's at Harriman

Tandem Story

Moriah sent this to me and I laughed. Enjoy, fellow writers!

Tandem Story

This assignment was actually turned in by two of my English students:
Rebecca ... and Gary ...
English 44A, SMU
Creative Writing
Professor Miller In-class Assignment for Wednesday:
One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to reread what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached.


At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish partical beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.
He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel." Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth - when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.
Little did she know, but she has less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through Congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion which vaporized Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em out of the sky!"

This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic, semi-literate adolescent.

Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium.