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10/13/2003 Entry: "Weekend Wrap-up: It was a dark and stormy night... suddenly a shot rang out..."
This weekend was pretty good. I got a lot of house cleaning done, in spite of my complaining ankle. I am now starting to think the ankle thing is related to the weather. I might go to the doctor's again, and try and see what exercises I can do to get strength back in that joint. See, part of the problem is when ONE foot part goes bad, the rest of the body starts to break down because the balance is poorly shifted, so then the other ankle hurts, my hips hurt, my back aches, and so on ... man, I am halfway to Miami at this point. Oy vey, such kvetching from a goy you never heard! I also got to go through a LOT of my old writings. Most writers that I know have a hard drive filled with writing. I have a lot of beginnings, tons of middles, and even a few ends, but no one cohesive story among them. I don't have anything ready to submit to major magazines or short story collections yet. In 2004, I will be starting in earnest to get back on track. Originally, I was going to go for broke with Tony Bumper, but I decided that I would be better off submitting short stories and articles first, since that worked pretty well for me before. It's also less frustrating when you get "stuck in the middle." Some of the most amusing stuff that also will probably never see the light of day: - A series of stories I was writing about a portly and awkward Jewish superhero with glasses and curly hair. Some of the scenes were hysterical, and I had some good lines, but the whole idea just became a sort of "so she's not a supermodel, and she's Jewish. So what now?" Uh...
- A story about an early 1800s schoolmaster who was really a space traveler, looking for an assistant. He picks a young redheaded girl who asks too many questions for her won good (back in the 1800s), and he offers the family to "train her at a special school." They say good riddance. He brings her on the spaceship, where she's educated on science, math, space travel and... I did nothing with it. There was too much Dr. Who in it for me, and it got a bit creepy that some older guy wanted a young girl, so I dropped the whole thing.
- A story about people stuck at a science fiction convention caught in an endless time loop. Before I finished this weak piece, I saw an anime film "Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer," and it was so similar, it popped that balloon for good.
- A horror story about a futuristic cop trying to trace a kidnapping, and stumbles upon a "spirit child" that says it is a form of combined souls of hundreds of children. They say that some old European creature has been preying on children for centuries ("Baernwulf"). This creature is almost human, and has the ability to remain in plain sight, yet unseen. This was one of my most promising pieces of horror, but after I took those foster child classes, my heart wasn't in it anymore. There's too much real horror in some children's lives to make stuff up.
- A race of beings who want to do trade with Earth (via strip mining rights of our silicon dioxide), but due to intergalactic rules, Earth has to send a "representative" to the Intergalactic Council to give the alien race rights to be in the solar system. So they rig a plan to kidnap a young scientist, bribe him with technological advances, and have him pose as a "representative of Earth," to be their unknowing patsy. Trouble is, this scientist is disillusioned with the whole human race, and doesn't think humans are worthy to be part of an intergalactic council of any kind. Illusions are shattered on both sides. Hilarity ensues. I might still finish this one.
- In 1991, an old BBS shuts down when the sysop says, "Screw you all if you can't get along." Many years pass to the present. Now old members of this BBS are being murdered. A search for the old sysop starts to try and find a link. Did she murder her old members? Why did she close down the BBS? Did she even exist? I decided not to do this one after "The BBS-shall-not-be-named" did their shenanigans because I feared they would think I was trying to murder them or something. Then the Internet bubble burst, and a lot of the story was too outdated by then.
- A house of odd fannish roommates has to solve a mystery. There's a bitter goth girl and her annoying poser best friend, a crippled technowhiz, an overweight gay primadonna, the token "normal guy," and a basement full of gamers. I got so into the characters, I forgot to write a plot. Oops.
- A series of dialogues between two aliens, posing as humans, stranded on Earth in a social study expedition gone wrong. I only wrote a few dialogues, and there's not plot, really, but two aliens talking about things they have noticed about humans. I posted an example yesterday.
- Adventures of a wizard, and how he rose to become the greatest wizard of all time. This one has been in the vaults for a LONG time. In fact, a lot of it turned into a historical perspective of the history of his world, like how wizardry works, and all the characters that fill it. It's now more of a personal project than anything I'll ever publish. I might post smidgens of the stories here, if anyone's interested. This only represents larger projects in my plethora of writings. I have a fairly good base, and while a lot of it needs editing for flow, I don't know if any will get published. I think I might start from scratch for a lot of them.
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