Missed a day of post yesterday, for some reason- I feel great lately, actually doing productive things with my day (well, sort of-- I remember why I made no post yesterday, and it's because I spent literally almost the whole day prostrate and watching Leverage. And some other shows I'm obsessed with right now, but mostly that-- how much time the average American spends watching TV, for me you can roughly triple that.) Today I spent doing awesome things! You probably don't want to hear about it, though. That's fair. Moving on.
I spent, turns out, a half hour under my three hour full time on Sunday, and in order to make up for that and the hour not spent writing yesterday, it's going to be another 2 1/2 hours' worth of writing in today's post, the exact length of time I spent Sunday as well. Which is really fun, just, writing, doing nothing else but getting something done that you're resolved to do-- creation is a noble aspiration, and, well, anyway, getting down to it, let's address the concerns we've all got with how to handle this thing, as was addressed by Kevin on Sunday.
Clearly I'm no longer trying to force the "8:30 to 9:30 AM" thing-- in fact, well, let's just say that this isn't the only one of my daily blogs where I've been dropping the ball on getting up the day's post on the day it belongs to per se.
Cracking down on the plot
Once the plot becomes irresistible to me, it'll be, well, irresistible to me, and I won't have such a rough time writing the story instead of just writing about it (which I clearly do just fine.) Writing about it is working when it comes to getting some very important juices flowing (...;) writing at all helps against being just a "word thinker," but it doesn't mean I'm not just one of those, doesn't automatically prevent it I mean. This is word thinking on paper.
That doesn't mean it can't be productive.
Magic system rules-
I wrote -- well, I'm not sure how much I got through it, if I even finished or started at all -- a short story years and years ago, maybe junior high or thereabouts, about light versus dark magics. If I did get through it, finish it I mean, I'm not sure how much of it survives, but... I do remember the concept behind it: white magic, the less you believe in it the less it exists, and black magic, the less you believe in it the more it exists. Not believing that the bogeyman is there ensures that he is, in other words, and believing in God makes Him real. The main character in the story is this kid, and he had this friend he vaguely recalls from childhood who now comes back-- the friend is some kind of monster, turns out, anyway; the story ends with the kid believing in him and causing him to disappear, and the kid vows that from now on he'll always believe and never forget. Straightforward enough. And still kind of neat. And, what the hay, maybe I should recreate it for the yearly Halloween spooky short story on my other blog. Anyway. What is this talk about light magic and dark magic? Is that how magic works in Finn's universe? Well... I don't know.
I didn't have a post yesterday, but that didn't stop me from being able to think about it. (Ah, man, right when I'd gotten I Can't Stop Thinking About It by the Dirtbombs out of my head... it's seriously been stuck there for a week, ever since the Beacon point (which is largely what that was all about.) Horndog Fest, must purchase that album... Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-blooey! as well, wouldn't hurt, as long as we're at it...) Couldn't stop thinking about it, anyway, right-- I was in the bath yesterday morning, mulling over high- and low-tech, exactly how any of that would work-- magic should be magic, right, and it's never really explained why some things are more "magic" than others. Let's say our team has a piece of surveillance equipment that's very magically expensive-- what makes this one so special; is it powered by a forsaken child? Yes? ...yes. So, what, is that the price of magic in this universe? No, not all magic; that would be terrible. But powerful magic, black magic... Powered by, white slavery. Human trafficking, sex trade. Other forms of depravity. It's a high price. Maybe even in our world, these practices are subsidized by bogeymen. But it's a terrible idea, of course. Terrible as in, awful. Wicked. Perverse. Wouldn't consider it. Not as the price of magic for everything. That would make even our good guys total monsters... But it's just the sort of thing that our vampire friends wouldn't bat a aarrgh no pun intended, over. And, hey, maybe that's not what the party at the beginning is for, but it provides some context powerful.
Vampires-- bat communication?
Originally I'd been thinking this idea for Other//half, the webcomic that's been swimming around in my head for three or four years wanting to get done-- I've got a gloriously fleshed-out future setting and everything, but not much story to hang as muscles on all those bones (needing to get better with a story's plot; where have I heard that before?)
The concept is, science has discovered the existence of the soul, and applications for that knowledge, and how those applications shape society and culture: you can swap souls with other people, sure, and not just people but animals and AIs and everything, but the latest phenomenon that's been discovered is the fact that you can actually merge your own soul with someone else's-- equivalent exchange requires two souls to remain after the merge, still, though, and so these two people continue on as two bodies, two souls, but the same soul as well in a sense.
I picked up an animal behavior textbook secondhand about a month ago (Biology of Animal Behavior, second edition, by Grier and Burk,) not only as a bit of reading on the side on what truly is a fascinating subject, but also to do research on how half-human hybrids would come out psychologically. The book introduces the subject with an in-depth study of how bats and moths have evolved to outwit each other (it's like what the White Queen says in Through the Looking-Glass: you need to run just to stand still): bats' systems of echolocation work through a couple of different ways, but whether FM or CF echolocation, bats' calls are high and fast. In the .5 seconds it takes for you to say the word "bat," Myotis lucifugus has already said "heeere, little mothy" up to 175 times depending on where it is in its calling cycle of supersonic chirps (frequency of chirping increases the closer it is to its prey.)
At first, I thought, hey, that's cool, I could have a (half-) bat character converse with another one in conversations undetected lasting mere miliseconds (putting a whole new spin on how "talking is a free action" in comic books.) But then I thought: hey, how would that be for vampires? (Potential echolocation usage numero dos: music has got to be really weird for bat characters, wouldn't it be?) I'm trying to avoid the "special vampire" syndrome as much as possible, but, hey guys, it's interesting; this is a really really neat idea.
Michael's life in the mundane world
Mundane, yeah? Non-supernatural? Won't touch the word "muggle" with an arbitrarily long pole (39 1/2 feet, there you go, (and, ehh, insert Nancy "N. K." Stouffer reference here,)) but, it's not like you can just ignore the difference between the supernatural and the, civilian, worlds.
Well, Michael (that's Finn to you; still in the habit of using his first name, not that he never goes by that,) his life-- I'm thinking-- I'm thinking Michael is black. Not that that's ever brought up explicitly; that's just how I'm picturing him. (Well, I still picture him as a white guy, but you get the picture- erm, idea.) If that ever becomes important to a scene, it won't be skirted around, of course, but, there you go. Maybe it'll only be brought up in the cover art. I was just thinking in the bath this morning about how the black dude is always always the first to die, and I thought, heh, Finn never goes down; if he were working with a black dude-- or if he were the black dude, maybe... That'd be such a crazy subversion. (Also: black people, so much easier to disguise as vampires than white people. Extra melanin, skin doesn't pale very much upon decease.)
There are some ground questions that need to be answered about his civilian life outside of the agency, the most pressing of which would be of course, how does his supernatural life interfere with his mundane one? I'd been saving this tidbit I've had, but, this is one of those "nonsupernatural situations that he can't slip out of so easily" deals, going on. There is, I'm thinking, a real life FBI agent on his tail investigating the "suspicious activity" that springs up around him... (Maybe who turns out to have been a previously fairly minor character under cover...?) There'd be other ways, but I like this one the most; the others would have to filter through that as well. Where does Finn work? How's his family doing? Does he have many friends? I can probably answer that last one with a, nope, not many. All his girlfriends are succubi, know that much...
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