Tag: About Writing

Lodestar, 39.5 … A Crossroad

That is, the writer has arrived at a crossroad in the saga. A place where the forward movement of several characters intersect with consequences good and bad, depending on who they are.

Kes is on his way to rescue Ahni. Srese, the female avatar, is familiarising herself with the world just beyond the door. Her brother Sard, the remaindered avatar, has a hide-out nearby.

Also in the scene are Youk, still trying to best the twins, and half a dozen more people. Though none are expendable extras, they’re not viewpoint-characters in the present.

If you’ve read both The Remaindered Avatar and Lodestar Part 2 up to this point, you may know the problem that needs solving. In the former, it was Sard who rescued Ahni, with all his observations and feelings of what happened in CAVE. (Which is known as Rockeater’s Ridge by the herders.) In the latter, more recently posted story, Srese organises Ahni’s rescue. Same event. Different rescuers.

Which version is the most dramatic? Which version should I disappear?

Both have their merits. But I have to admit, that even as I’m writing this I’m deciding that the version that has Srese setting Ahni’s rescue into motion is the more informative, if not the more dramatic one.

Sard’s version can be shortened toward its end because somewhere along both these time lines, Srese and Sard almost meet.

Meaning that a couple of chapters of Sard’s story need to be rejigged, later, when I resume work on that again. In Srese’s version, Ahni can be left where she’ll be found by Sard after he catches up on what’s happening in CAVE, because Ahni will still need to be in Sard’s hands when she is rescued.

Links to the relevant chapters for your interest:
The Remaindered Avatar 16: Rescuing Ahni
Lodestar 34: What the Implant Did

Cat Tales, 4

All that the pernickety old woman expected me to live on until morning …

First thing this morning the pernickety old woman called me ‘Maggy’. Huh? Well I know she meant me, no one else present. I ignored her. I am Hand-of-God.

What the pernickety old woman and I are engaging in now, I’ll call the struggle for dominance, because that’s what I am about. You thought that was a dog thing? Ever seen a cat and dog stand off?

I overheard her say to a friend that she’s getting me accustomed to being awake in the daytime, and if that wasn’t enough, she’s getting me used to spending the majority of my waking hours indoors?

Well! We’ll see about that! I lay down on the mat in front of the backdoor—where sunlight beat through the glass and warmed me wonderfully. How could I not sleep for hours?

I did. I woke in the late afternoon. We could’ve had another stand-off about me going outside except that the woman distracted me with that red feather on stick.

She twirled the stick and I jumped and leapt and rolled at the twirling feather. We had a great time but that can’t happen again. I can’t let her win me over like this.

Then she showed me where she will feed me, in the kitchen. A white ceramic bowl filled with my favourite kibbles. Water right there beside them. I felt mollified and ate far too much.

I had another sleep and when I woke, I vomited up my kibbles. What a waste! Despite that I’m feeling wobbly in the middle, the old woman scooped me up, and ran me to the laundry.

She set me on the litter tray and waited expectantly. “Go on,” she said. “Sick up the rest.”

How embarrassing. I walked back to the drinking bowl in the kitchen. I drank. Waited by the food bowl for her to refresh the kibble supply.

Grumbling at herself, she cleaned up the vomit. “No more kibbles today,” she said.

What??!!! I’m telling you I created havoc that night!

Cat Tales, 3

Me, the Hand-of-God, trying to get out of the house

The pernickety old woman has many unnatural ideas about me, as I said. They cause a lot of strife and strangering between us, as you might expect.

Strangering is when someone pretends they are a stranger and they stalk away with their tail high and their self-respect intact.

Our first great struggle was about me intending to do my Hand-of-God work in the night. Let me tell you, I have stood hours at the back door, miaowing sternly, or piteously, begging, or forceful. “Open the cage door,” I would cry. “Let me explore the night!”

The first few times she told me about the nocturnal critters native to her backyard. She’d sworn that they’d go unmolested.

“I’m the Hand-of-God. I wanna get to know them,” I cried. She turned her back on me, got on with getting dinner.

The following dozen stand-offs at the backdoor, she told me about the little deaths delivered to her by a neighbouring tom. The morning he brought her a snakelet in three pieces, she decided that none of her pets would ever join in the nightly carnage.

“Pets?” I snarled. I’ll show her who the pet is in this house! I stalked into the bedroom and hid under the bed. Causing, I might add, a lengthy battle at her bedtime, with the easily deflected indoor broom.

“Go! Have the run of the house,” she said.

My last 20 or 30 attempts to gain the night, she served up several more excuses, the weakest one about the busy road out front where two of my predecessors met their demise. “I’m a super cat,” I cried. “The Hand-of-God!”

She apparently thinks she can wean me from my instincts. “If my instincts can be dampened down with enculturation,” she said. “So can yours!”

I showed her my teeth in disgust. Predictably, she laughed. “Like it or lump it,” she said.

About The Lodestar Timeline

The Star Wars chronology has been my go-to viewing for the past few weeks. The Mandalorian has just said auf wiedersein to his small charge and will be at a loose end.

The Mandalorian series got me thinking about novels, such as The Crystal Planet by Vonda McIntyre, set in the Starwars universe.

[All Star Wars related media produced pre 2014 are now referred to as Legends, while for post 2014 material and the original series, Disney+ claims the ‘Canon’ label.]

While they all have only a tenuous position on the original timeline, TV series and books have expanded the Star Wars universe.

The original timeline of the Lodestar universe has always involved timetravel. Not sideways to expand the size of the universe yet, to give more options where to set stories, as in the Star Wars universe.

The Lodestar universe began in the future … I even set a date for its beginning when I was still new at the business of writing a universe. But it turns out that in a story that involves a time travelling, forward falling, octohedrenal spaceship such as the Lodestar, there is no beginning or end.

Because that’s what happened …

A storm lurking above an anonymous suburban scene … a harbinger of climate change … one of the drivers of eco fiction … image from Alex Steffen’s Substack The Snap Forward

Blogging

Blogging by mobile/cell phone is a new thing for me. Entering this one fingered …

My laptop is frozen and I need to find a repair place that I can easily get to.

In former times I used a business that sent technicians on house visits. The local one of that sort is silent at the end of the phone line. Not even a message service. Brrr brrrr. Brrr brrrr.

Just then tried to find the function with which to get an image … lol, went to Jetpack instead and had to sign up for that, to be able to get back to this.

So maybe not an image today!

Nope! Did get a pic! This fearless explorer motorbike riding mechanic suits my present state of mind.

Life: Over-extended!

‘Over-extended’ sums up my state of being pretty accurately when I realized I was hardly doing anything I really enjoyed, but started to feel harried! This time last week I had two blogs and a Substack to populate with interesting posts. I’d signed up to receive a dozen newsletters to read through the week. And that all is not counting my presence on FB.

And lol, I was expecting to be able to continue gardening, mending, painting, and Lego construction. And keep up with real-life socializing, medical appointments and dream journaling. I even thought I could write three long stories at the same time! Tch tch tch. Truly over-extended. But don’t worry, this blog is a stayer. Lodestar is a stayer. MELD, second part of the Monster-Moored series, is being prepped for a structural edit. Earth Fall, a prequel of the Monster-Moored series, that I started to serialize on Substack, is stalled.

Because I’ve been pruning. The Substack account? Is gone. Three quarters of the newsletters? Unsubscribed. Half a dozen FB groups? Unfollowed.

Last Sunday I decided to learn a new Lego technique at least every week. Not necessarily anything to do with Lego storying projects, which will continue once the stream of visitors I’ve been having dries up. Visitors mean that my Lego-ing table, aka the dining table, must be empty for dining on.

Some of my visitors were here a couple of weeks ago for the ‘Three Sisters’ weekend I hosted at my place when I had both my sisters to stay. We try to do this every year though we live all over the country.

Some of my visitors are here for the cataract operations I’m booked in for, when I need an in-house carer to stay for the night after the op. Two eyes equals two cataract operations needing two in-house carers a month apart, first one of my sisters, then my son. It’ll be a relief to get my eyes working together again. At the moment, I’m doing all my reading with the now-good eye and a magnifying glass as my old specs don’t work anymore.

The new Lego-technique in that small bunch of Lego flowers up above, concerns the stamens in the orange California poppy. Four tiny stamens, each made with two of the elements that I had no ideas on how to use. I have another dozen of these mysteries in my collection.

But going back to that feeling of being over-extended, and not being able to do anything well. Feeling harried by the amount of reading. Feeling my creativity nose-diving. I’ve hardly done any painting lately. An installment for Lodestar was taking months to write instead of a couple of weeks. I haven’t knitted at all this winter. And sitting down with a good novel ? Fell by the wayside.

So here’s to trimming, pruning, and cutting back! Organizing life to be able to live and enjoy it!

How and what have you trimmed recently? Apart from your finger and toenails. 🙂