OK folks….Amy sent me the sonogram, something about
technical difficulties…so it’s up to me to post it.

It’s a little fuzzy, but you can already make out some of
the facial features.

See the eyes?

Amy said she was worried that it looked like an alien…but I
just don’t see it.

Here ya go:

Baby Sonogram

I feel a coma coming on.

So I’ve given up on trying to catch up on all the posts I had planned on making in the last week and a half.  There just isn’t time.  I’m swimming in an epic poem sea and my world is centered on this fallen angel…and a voodoo priestess…and today I visited a bar owner who was a former priest…and a tabloid journalist who discovers something shocking…and the shape of the universe (and why the city and the veldt are the same)…and a little boy who pulls wings off of flies (to the background, in my head, of “Change in the House of Flies,” by the Deftones)…and a really dark muse who wants to eat everybody’s eyes…and ash…always there is ash…ash links it all together…and when I’m done, it’ll all hopefully make more sense than this.  It  begins and ends with the opening of a door.

Oh…and Elizabeth Bathory (the Blood Countess), Leviathan, the Windego, the Devil (in a much different guise), a vomiting knight, and a psychic sex-line girl are all slated to make cameos…and we’ll all find out how Jesus learned to walk on water (I have to do this in a week!?!?!).

I’m going to slither out of my cloths and into bed now…

PS – The prospect of being a godparent has me totally, and unexpectedly giddy.

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/atplay/package.jsp?name=atplay/pm/chupacabra

The Funny thing is, the little link said “Bloodsucker in Texas,” then, a second or two later, it changed, flashing Bush’s picture.

he-he

Quick note on Volo Bog Ghost stories this year:

If anyone wants in, let me know. We’ll probably work out car pooling to get up north and anyone attending is free to stay at my house for the night

I’m very, very tired.

The structure of my epic poem is a mix of poetry and pros. The main chapters, dealing with the main plot, and the spirit world, are in poetic form, as a dialogue between a voodoo priestess and her summoned muse. In between, are short little stories (I call them interludes) that indirectly go over the themes of the surrounding chapters, and tell independent stories set, mostly, in the real world.

When Neil Gaiman wanted to make one of his novels sound different, he decided to handwrite it, to change the rhythm of the sentences. So I tried that technique with the interludes only (to make them sound a little different than the chapters). I got a fountain pen and am using a journal I got as a gift (thanks Torrie! I read Patrick’s rune before every writing, to ward off writer’s block and darker things still).

I get a little freedom when I write the interludes, and lately, I’ve been writing them by the new pillar circle and fountain on campus, usually after midnight (they keep it lit up all night…and I like running water).

The other night I walked in the rain to clear my head on a plot point…it worked.

Tonight I set out to write a couple of interludes. One of them was not the first I”ve written, but I’ve decided to make the first interlude, as it sort of indirectly, in narrative, explains the form and shape of my book. Just a short interlude, and introduction to all the others. Well…words mounted as well as metaphysical theories and now I’ve found I’ve commented on the very nature of the universe and its shape…and it took all freaking night. I like it…but it wasn’t supposed to take so long (I guess delving into the secrets of the universe eats up time).

The other night, one of those new Coke machines (the ones that you can see the inner workings of) corrected itself. I’ve never seen this before. I typed in a combo of letter and number to get a cherry coke…and the little conveyer belt went up to the level…and there was a wine as the coke was supposed to fall out and then be conveyed to the slot…but there was just a wine, no coke, and the belt moved. The belt went down and then up again and tried again. No dice. The machine spat out my money and I tried a different coke and this time it worked. This is a big deal to me. Every machine I’ve ever dealt with has been apt to steal your money at the drop of your hat – to eat money or give the wrong product or give you back less change than you put in when you finally ask for it. This machine self corrected. If vending machines have gotten so honorable that they are willing to admit a mistake and fix it…maybe people can learn this too…

There’s more…but I have to sleep…

Update time…before I dream…

Last week, it was my turn to read some of my work in my creative writing class.  I got a lot of good comments…which helped a lot of my writing woes from earlier in that week.

I read the latest draft of the prologue to my epic poem.  I’m the only grad student in the class (it’s just a time filler until I finish my thesis) so I’m kind of a big fish in a little pond, but the students did have some great comments and suggestions (not just “it’s bad” or “it’s good”).  They all seemed very impressed.  I got comments regarding:

-The unbroken chain of repetition of sound from start to end. (I’m really glad this was noticed as I’d worked hard to create it.)

-A lot of them agreed that they felt the emotions in the piece and that a lot of writers did not do that for them (cha-ching!!!).

-One girl kept her mouth closed the whole time.  Finally, prompted to speak, she said that she didn’t want to sound rude or negative (uh…oh….I thought)…and then proceeded to talk about how the piece disturbed her…that it was really well written and it disturbed her and she probably would be thinking about it that night and maybe loose sleep.  I don’t know why she thought she’d sound rude.  Her description of everything indicated that all the effects I wanted the prologue to have on a reader (I try to be very conscious of pacing and effect) seemed to work (you just never know until you read it to an audience).  Yay!  Disturbing is the effect I wanted.  It’s not a happy scene.

-They noticed, and enjoyed, the importance of the colors used.  Particularly black, white, gray, and red.

-They seemed to like that the thing that came to save the little girl was a grey, broken winged spirit…rather than a glowing white, pure angel.

-“Dude, you are deep…DEEEEEEEEEEP.”  Not the most in depth comment I got…but every ego boost helps.

-The best comment I got, was from a girl who said that in fiction, and even in first hand accounts of child abuse (the prologue is about a little girl who is hiding in bed, with the bump-scrape sound of her abusive, molesting father coming up the stairs) she always felt sympathy and horror…but she never felt the emotions directly, as if she was there……but, she said, she felt like she was there, real time, with that little girl (or as the little girl during the story).  THAT is what I thought I was overshooting for when I thought of the prologue all those months ago.  I thought I wanted the reader to see from that height and feel claustrophobic and trapped and feel the ominous bump-scrape sounds coming up the steps.  I’m very happy.  I also realized that, should my fiction get sold and published…people are going to assume that I had a really bad childhood.

After all the glowing comments, I opted to float back to my room rather than walk, after class.

Later, I realized that, in my opening chapter, the broken winged spirit goes through a red door and PAINTs IT BLACK.  In the second chapter, that same sorry, fallen angel KNOCKS ON HEAVEN’S DOOR (in a dark and sad sort of way).  And, in a later, interlude chapter, I try and incite a bit of SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL.  And yes…music playlists affect fiction…

Friday I got to see my brother get knifed to death on stage for a production of Wait Until Dark.  I also finally got my sword on Friday!!!  Now I can actually practice all those things I learned in stage combat class.

Friday night, I and some Eureka friends (fellow alums and current students) partied…and somewhere along the way, a perverse revel spirit possessed the party and it became a topless party.  Then it became a pass dollar bills to people in creative ways party.  And then it . . . well . . . imaginations are fertile fields.

Did I ever tell you I can read brail?

Game on Saturday.  I didn’t make it to the Pimps and Hoes party at Eureka…and I wish I had.

There’s more…but I’m exhausted…it was a long and fun weekend…

Hell is a blank page.

I learned some Civil War era dancing on Friday (I never plan for these things to happen…they just do).

I learned that I and my brother will be performing an extended magic show, in a couple of weeks…he just hadn’t thought to let me in on it (it’s great when you learn about the great show your going to perform, from a stranger…when you don’t even know about it).  Got to get our old stage stuff together.  Oh well…it’s for a fatty $400+ check and I need that.

It was great to see those of you who I saw at the high-lighter party in Saturday.  Unfortunately it was brief (I miss hanging out with you all) – and I missed some partying as I was talking with my Ex about Ex type things and by the time I made it back…the cops had yet again busted it all up (and for the last time).  That is agravating.  As an alumni, I’m outraged at having them cut into my post-grad fun time.  Damn police.  All I have in defense are words…but then…Kansas wanted me to write an article…

Back at school.  I’m digging in.  And now I will hide myself away in a little mind cave and make the dash to finishing this book (or rather a draft of it) by the 26^th.  It’s a little scary.  But then…Ray Bradbury wrote The Martian Chronicles in something like nine days, on a type writer, at a library, that he had to pay for by the hour.  I’ve got my own desktop, laptop, and a 400+ (that’s twice in this post that I’ve mentioned the sum “400+” and they are both completely unrelated) song playlist to get me there.