Category: My Books & Stories

Earth Fall, 1

At the time when I started writing Claire’s and Nalbo’s stories, I titled the manuscript Earth Fall for a working title. History soon caught up with me and there have been a novel, a film and a four-person shooter video game published by that name, and I thought for a while that I would change the name, the way that I renamed the story that became Lodestar.

But Earth Fall still makes the most sense for this story of the alien engineer, in an Earth-centric orbit for fifty years in his spaceship, comes down to Earth for an as yet unknown reason, leaving the majority of his alien and human support system to keep his spaceship in orbit.

His arrival in Earth’s neighborhood caused all sorts of distress to electronic communications and transport, as apparently his spacecraft grazed over the fields of electrical pulses. Communication satellites stopped working on day one, and humanity teetered at the brink of collapse for a decade before things stabilized, minus electronics.

Sounds like a fairly weak set-up in this day and age, though many a film plot has got up and run with much less originality. But it’s Claire’s and Nalbo’s meeting with the Lotor-alien’s life-support system that’s of interest here.

Claire and Nalbo are a pair of fairly ordinary Australian retirees whose lives intersect with a bunch of completely unordinary alien beings. The things happening as a result are necessary knowledge (for you) if later on I decide to also serialize MELD (Part 2 of the Doomed trilogy). They are a prequel, if you like.

1. The Dye WorkshopDownload

Story Debt continued …

One of those photos I make of a seemingly hidden pic on the TV screen, a god-like figure in the hidden depths of a mysterious pool, inserted … even seeded … in there, perhaps to act as an eventual hook for a new series. I seem to remember that I got it from The Mandolorian somewhere. This camera shot surprisingly clear compared to the original.

Instead of sedately side-stepping back to the original Lodestar story, or going way back to the first or third installments, I’ve decided to skip to part 12. [This is all on the Page about the Lodestar Timeline] Which in a way can be thought of as the very first installment and anyway is a necessary prequel to the Doomed Trilogy.

Claire and Nalbo retired to the valley where the alien engineer, original owner of the spacecraft known on Earth as The Lodestar, decides to spend time on Earth to renew a member of his life support system. Things don’t go well as can be expected when species as different as the alien engineer and his support system, and humans meet.

I was only about fifty when I began writing this installment, and thought I should wait until I was much older to know what it felt like to be old and crotchety. Well, I’m seventy-seven now, high time I tackled it.

Cat Diary 35

Two weeks ago the old woman went to Bunnings on the little bus and got, among a few other doo-dads, a 50 meters of a black twine-like substance.

When she got home she cut off a piece to test it for knots, she said. Making a few of them in this stuff and dragging it along the floor.

A black string dragging along the floor is like a red rag to a bull if you get my meaning… when I see it I have gotto chase it.

It’s been my only interest for two weeks and I still don’t know how to stop it sliding from between my toes when the old woman tugs it.

She’s getting bored with it, she tells me as she put another knot in the end for me to catch hold of. She tells me it’s the easiest form of playing. She means it requires the least output of energy by me. And she’s right, I like to take it easy.

This is me looking at the string draped over my pillow case with catnip in it.

This me starting a game. Except then I heard her starting to video me and I walked away. I hate that little noise. Lucky the corner was right there.

When she started typing, the one-fingered type, I came back and am just sitting here looking at my black string. Hoping it’ll magically start moving itself so I can chase it.

PS she gave the rest of the string to the builder in the family. It’s 100% polyester and too slippery to hold a knot.

Water color-painting .. practice

Learning a craft takes a lot of practice. When I was stil pretty new to watercolor painting, I used to try to paint on any type of paper and thin cardboard.

Not all of it worked. Art calendars featuring photographic art have a lot of marble dust in them. Paint sits on top until it dries. Made for some interesting experiments.

Then for a while I used mixed media papers, they worked better and I still have a few of those paintings.

Lately I’ve gone into 200 gsm paper specifically made for watercolor and since I have a problem throwing out good things that might be useful one day, I swear I’ve hung onto every bit of used 200gsm paper I’ve painted, it seems like.

Of course I laugh at myself but then don’t throw anything, I have a bag full of painted scraps for collaging.

Recently I’ve felt the need to practise painting a ‘wash’ or ten. Something I have a lot of difficulty with. So ended up with ten washes on four sides.

Made them into a little art zine … if I have that terminology right. Here the back and front covers (three washes)

The story was going to be about a red planet but the nickety nog said No!

Several aspects about this booklet please me quite a lot. The size, a quarter of an A4 page. It’s just enough for a short fairy story. I like the way the torn edges of the pages look edged with gold.

‘Hariet Reed’ is a pen name scrambled from my real name. Good for the witch telling this story. I don’t like the stickers much, will rethink that aspect. The random design of the pages (all those washes) worked well.

The story became a dark in color as wel as plot little tale about a nickety nog demanding a five and after being offered various juicy morsels and rejecting them, stealing five gold coins.

The story lacks cohesion, there are a couple of glitches, as well as other things I could’ve done better. The gold coins for example.

Some of the coins are gold-leaf on pva glue, none of them turned out round and some were rounded later with acrylic paint. And then towards the end I thought might as well paint the whole coin with acrylic gold. Worked the best of the lot.

All useful things to remember for when I make the next little story book. Only the last two pages were over-painted to help the tale end.