Behind? I don't mind

I'm definitely feeling some pressure to keep pace to succeed at Script Frenzy. I'm at 16 pages as I sit down to write tonight. If I'm to stay on my self-appointed pace of 4 pages/day, I need to cram four in tonight. Doable.

I'm a little anxious, but really enjoying this challenge. Much more than NaNoWriMo. In fact, after this, I may try to adapt another story into an audio drama... and then try to record it!

Procrastinating

It's Nov 1. Time to start on NaNoWriMo. Which, of course, means, it's time to procrastinate. Why? Because starting on a project like this is scary. Not scary like monsters and tests you didn't study for. But scary because I have to pick ONE projects and carry it through for a whole month!

My situation right now is: I can either choose a project that I've been thinking about for a while, or start a whole new project that I know nothing about.

Advantages of project 1: The Known World.
1. I already have ideas. So in theory it should be easy to develop those into 50k words.
2. It's something I've told someone else about already, and they said "cool." So that provides some additional motivation.

Disadvantages of project 1:
1. I've had long enough to think about it for it to turn into one of those "pet projects" that has to turn out just so or I won't be happy.
2. It's a "collection" idea. A collection of short stories. So in theory it's a bunch of ideas that I would have to work on instead of just one.

Advantages of project 2:
1. Clean slate, with plenty of opportunity for inspiration.
2. No connections to other projects. No pre-set expectation levels.

Disadvantages of project 2:
1. I just did a couple of 30-minute test-writes that yielded some great material. But they were all done before Nov 1, so I can't use those words.* I feel like I used up my good ideas.
2. I feel an attachment to project 1, and want it to happen.

So here's what I'm thinking:
Project 1 has too much emotional attachment. Even though Project 2 has the scariness of a new project, I think Project 1 has too much risk. So I'll try project 2.

Now I just need an idea.

30 minutes, unedited

I'm going to write for 30 minutes and see what comes out. I had an idea on the way over to the coffee shop, and we'll see what I can make of it.

"Hello Margaret."

"It's Maggie. I've told you that a hundred times. Honestly, professor, I think you do it just to piss me off."

"Margaret, I would never do anything to anger you!" He replied with a rye smile.

"The usual?" She asked. I guess I should have said a dry smile. He'll have a rye smile after that shot. And the next. Honestly, I don't know why he buys the cheap stuff. It's not like money's an issue.

I've seen this guy in here every Friday night for the past year. Well, almost a year. I only moved here ten months ago. Whatever. I got nothing against regulars. If I did, I'd be a hypocrite, wouldn't I? Now, I don't fault the guy for ordering the same thing every time, either. I just don't see why a guy who comes in wearing a brand new several-hundred-dollar suit orders the cheap stuff.

"So, how's things, professor?" She leans over the bar, her ample frame causing the old wood to sag imperceptibly.

"Well damn it Margaret, I need a good librarian and I can't find one anywhere!"

My ears perk up as if someone lit a Q-tip on fire. Maggie knows I'm studying to become a librarian. She also knows I'm out of a job. She's got to point him my way, but I don't know if I want her to. I mean, I'm only half a pint away from being soused. Shit. I try to straighten my collar, but he's already headed over to my lonely corner table.

"Excuse me, sir, but are you Aaron?" The 'professor's' breath reeks of cheap rye whiskey. He's got a low-ball glass of the stuff filled to the brim with one thin token ice chip in it so he can call it "on the rocks."

"Yes. I am." I respond, trying not to look like I've been slouching over beer after beer for the past three hours.

"I uh... Well... Let me introduce myself. My name is Professor Charles Wade." I lift my hand to shake his extended wrinkled hand. I feel like there's a lead weight on the end of my wrist and his grip is like the blacksmith's forge. I pull back sharply, then force a chuckle, hoping I didn't offend him.

"Well, in any case, it's a pleasure to meet you." He continued. "Margaret kindly directed me to you in response to an inquiry I have. You see..."

He's still talking, but I can barely hear him. The beer is roaring between my ears, and the juke box just kicked in, blaring god knows what over the speakers. The background din slowly fades as the professor leans in and talks at me, inches from my face.

"...for a book that no other librarian seems to recognize. But Margaret said you are a little more familiar with things that others are not. That is, your expertise lies in areas not usually pursued by those in the library profession."

Oh geez. What did Maggie tell this weirdo? I pulled over a chair from the next table and offered the professor a seat.

"Look, uh..."

"You can call me Charles."

"Look, Charles, I don't know what Maggie told you, but I'm not a librarian. I'm still in school studying librarianship. I've got two years left of school before I can get a job just putting books back on the shelf. If you're looking for a lib--"

When he pulled out that drawing it was like he sucker-punched me in the gut. All my breath left me. My vision narrowed. All I could see was his crumpled napkin stained with spilled whiskey and feathering, bleeding, black ink. He read my reaction like a book.

"You understand now why I need you and not any other librarian."

"No. No I don't understand. You don't need me. You need someone who specializes in tracking down rare and out of print books. Have you tried the web? No wait. You don't need that. What you need is someone who can find books that don't exist. That and a good shrink."

I slammed the rest of my beer and instantly regretted it. The bolus, too large for my throat, made me ache for minutes afterward.

"No. Wait." I lurched forward, snatching the napkin from him. "I'll... I'll see what I can do."

He smiled. Yellow. That was his smile. All yellow. Gums: yellow. Teeth: yellow. Dear god even his tongue looked yellow. Maybe it was the light. Maybe it was the booze. Maybe I should've called it quits an hour ago. Gone home before this guy ever walked in.

He handed me a small card. Printed in embossed black ink on an ivory stock was written "Professor Charles Wade, esoteric philosophy, antiquarian. 10 West Road."

Shit. I looked up from his card as I fumbled it into my pocket. Shit. Why was I letting this deranged old man fill my head with wacky ideas. He didn't know me. I didn't know him. Why should I listen to anything he had to say? He reached for the napkin on the table again.

"Wait. Ok. So you want me to look for some weird book. What am I supposed to be looking for?"

"It's a journal. A diary. You are familiar with Honoré Fragonard?"

I nodded. "The erotic painter or his... "artistic" cousin, the anatomist?"

"The latter. You see, no one has ever been able to exactly duplicate his methods. Certainly we have more efficient and easier ways of preserving specimens now. But there is a certain... how shall I put this? There is a certain charm to his methods that is lost in the cold science of today."

"So you want me to dig up this guy's scientific journals so you can recreate what he did?"

"Exactly!" He took a victorious swig of whiskey as if I had just handed him the diaries he wanted.

"Well, it's not that easy, friend. First off, this guy lived in, what, the 18th century? Next, there are historians, scientists, biographers, and god knows who else, with access to inexhaustible resources, who haven't found these papers yet. What makes you think I stand a chance at finding what hundreds of other people, better trained people, haven't been able to find in over 200 years?"

"This." He slipped a well-worn manilla envelope across the table.

I eyed him suspiciously. He clearly didn't think this was any sort of clandestine operation. I mean, he just handed me his trump card in the middle of a crowded, if poorly-lit, bar in Uptown. I lifted the flap, watching him for a reaction. I didn't get one.

"Look. At least buy me a beer, man."

He stood up and walked off to the bar. No doubt to buy me the cheapest swill on tap. I quickly snatched the napkin and jammed it into my pocket. No way I was letting that out of my sight.

Bastard probably had another one or the original copy. He was probably stupid enough to have it with him. Probably in one of the pockets of that tweed jacket. I could get friendly, offer to walk him out of the bar, lead him quietly to the back alley and jump him. Take whatever he had with him. Drawings, sketches, money. I needed money, but not that bad. And whatever this guy had on him wasn't going to be anything I could sell. Even if there were a buyer, I'd never trust anyone who'd want to buy... this.

Honoré Fragonard

Inspired by the question "Where would your investigator look for information about ghouls?" thread over at Yog-Sothoth.com, I was inspired to look up Honoré Fragonard again. I find the man fascinating and would love to get my hands on any sort of biographical information I can find. Unfortunately it seems there is very little. I think I may have to visit a medical library or similarly specialized library to find much.

In the meantime, I have this biography from the Honoré Fragonard Museum. And there is the French Wikipedia article as well, which I have translated (roughly) for the aforementioned YSDC thread.

What I find most fascinating is that he made his Écorchés not only for scientific purposes, but for artistic and entertainment and money! He sold many to aristocrats to help furnish their Curiosities Cabinets.

And then when he tried to collect all of his works in one place he was foiled! People, both of science and the aristocracy, wanted them too much to see them displayed in a museum. So there are only 21 specimens that have survived at École National Vétérinaire d'Alfort, and one or two other at other museums and universities. But he made around 50 or more! Where are those other 30?

Creative Writing Prompt #46

Writing prompt #46: In 200 words, describe a hot day
(From http://creativewritingprompts.com/)

Attempt #1: fiction. 212 words.
It’s the kind of heat that sticks to you like the tar softening in the streets. The humid, damp, soaking grip of Minnesota summer. Sure, it’s not as hot as summers further south, but like we say, “it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.”

But what I’m really thinking right now is who the hell gets married outside in this kind of weather? What bride says “I want to wilt in the sun front of my friends and family”? At least she gets to wear white – she doesn’t care if they talk – the groom is wearing a black wool suit. I don’t know if I pity him more for having to suffer through the heat or the years to come.

Dark, solid, heavy rainclouds taunt us from the edge of the horizon. The relief that rain would bring is far away, and “just skirting around the metro area.” I hate weathermen. I swear if you just put them outside to do the forecast on days like this their pretty little plastic smiles would melt and drip down their face.

It’s too hot to be this angry. I fan myself with the wedding program, dreaming of the indoor, open-bar, reception. “Two gin and tonics, please.” I can already tasty the icy pine tree.

Attempt #2: embellished non-fiction. 203 words.
We were gathered around the great bonfire in our full uniforms. Each Boy Scout adorned with his merit badge sash, proudly displaying his accomplishes. The ripples of the lake lapping at the shore just beyond the clearing were the only sounds. We, the newest initiates into the Order of the Arrow, had sworn ourselves to silence for the duration of our induction weekend. Now that weekend was coming to a close.

Our fellow scouts, senior members of the Order, had taken on the traditional garb of American Indian tribes from our region and marched slowly past the many concentric rings of initiates towards the raging flames.

My uniform clung to me tightly, stuck in place by the glue that was the sheets of sweat pouring out of my body after digging post holes and building fences in the blazing sun. As I stared into the fire I couldn’t help wondering what it felt like to pass out from heat stroke. What it would look like to others as I dropped to my knees. What it might feel like when my head started to spin and I barely managed to get my arms in front of my face before it collided with the ground.

Creative Writing Prompt 10/11/07

"How did you get up there? Write about something that happened on the roof." From www.writingfix.com

Before I tell you why I'm up here... on the roof... in the cold with the wind trying angrily to push me off the edge, let me tell you how I ended up with such a silly prompt. In an effort to write more regularly, I've taken to ingesting large quantities of fiber to help me get the literary shit out. That's right, that's what I think of my writing. Well, the only way to get better is to shit more. So I figured the roof is a great place to start a little pile.

That's why. Here's how, tThough I hesitate to tell you the truth.

I have a well-practiced and much-rehearsed answer that I tell to everyone else, even my closest friends and relatives: the stairs at the back of the building, then the ladder in the alcove up through the dark tunnel to the horizontal door.

The truth?

This morning was rough. The alarm, despite its best efforts, failed in its assigned task. Even its shrillest cries could not pierce my sonorous slumber. Something in a disturbing dream I can not recall woke me and I am thankful for that blessed curse, for had my sleep been more restful I would not have left the bed until the sunlight burnt holes in my eyelids.

In a dreamstate, only fractionally awake and scarcely aware of my surroundings I stumbled to the shower. The warm, soothing, mist did nothing to clear the clouds from my mind. With my thoughts still wrapped warmly in the thick blankets of my bed, my eyes struggling to lift the infinitely heavy veil of my eyelids, I found my clothes, keys, briefcase, and the bus stop.

Silent, empty, and still, the cavernous reading room yawned its welcome. The library would not open to patrons for another hour, and with many of the librarians away at a conference, she seemed isolated and cold. It did not help that the marble floor, pillars, walls, ceiling, were of a shade of gray perfectly matched to the icy sky outside her windows and that the sound of the wind howled balefully from the ventilation system. A chill breeze brushed away callously my comfortable jacket of body heat it had taken so long to achieve. Confused, I looked for an open window and found none.

But there, six stories overhead, amidst the shadows and darkness in the recesses of the vaulted ceiling, I saw what I can now only describe vaguely as a portal. A black, sinister, opening that appeared, at such a distance, to be little larger than a sheet of paper. With no morning tasks yet to occupy me, I climbed the narrow spiral staircase to the serials collection filled with a growing curiosity.

The sixth floor lines the walls of the library, opening in the middle to gaze down dizzily at the floor of the reading room and the intervening mezzanine levels filled with books and journals aged from new-born publications to withered and wizened elder monographs. The perspective never suited me, throwing distance and depth into chaotic disarray. I have never done well with heights, it is no secret.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light that seemed to reach up meekly from the lamps on the floor so far below, I noticed that same shadow among shadows. The darker rectangle now appearing distinct and unique and separate from the other amorphous shapes in the artificial twilight, now disappearing into the depths of the inky blackness with its brethren shades, caught and held my attention. I know not what thoughts passed through my mind, but soon found myself shambling, one foot then the other, toward that mysterious aperture.

I remember climbing on the marble ledge, ornate and sculpted, so that I could stand beneath that odd unnatural window. This memory sticks with me because in my dazed climb, my shoe slipped off my foot and silently fell to the stone so many feet below me. My mind fell with my shoe, tumbling end over end, watching the tomes and volumes fly upwards past me until with a sudden, sharp, impact, my functions returned to me.

And that is when I found myself on the roof of the library, watching the cars and pedestrians pass by briskly in the cold Autumn air. No horizontal door. No dark ladder in a recessed alcove at the top of poorly lit stairs. No believable adventure did I have, but rather the illusions of the mad, the insane... the sleeping.

Leaving Las Vegas

Being my memories of the airport boarding gate as we waited for our return flight home from Las Vegas.


Our flight was supposed to leave at 8.30p. We got to the gate around 7.45. And we waited while all the horrid cacophony of slot machine noises blared around us. Our plane was delayed. At 9 we asked what was going on. Mechanical trouble, another plane en route. More and more the bing ching ring tingle clack roar of flashing lights and mind-numbing hums and electronicly produced tunes tore at my ear drums.

10.30, still no plane. The one that was supposed to be the replacement couldn't leave its airport because of a bomb threat. I'll bomb threat you god damn purveyors of slot machine hells!! but that won't stop the bells and whistles, whirs and chirps, clacks and ratchet clicks as one-armed-bandits rob me of my sanity. Red eyed tired and boiling with rage I stare down the clock, daring it to strike Midnight.

Unfeeling, uncaring, the giant garish digital clock reads 12.30a. We are finally boarding. The laser light show provided by the horrid machinery is not celebratory. It is mocking. Taunting. Laughing at me with all of its many grating metallic voices.

The King in Yellow

The French authorities are clamoring for the destruction of and suppression of a newly written play titled "The King in Yellow." This critic received an advanced copy of the 'heretical' play and scarcely felt the need to finish the bloody thing. It is pure banality! The piece reads like dictations from parliamentary sessions.
The author, one Monsieur Castaigne, dares call himself a playwright. In fact his is more akin to the profession of a parliamentary page. His play drags along at such a tedious pace I could not even force myself to finish reading the damn thing. In the openning scene we are introduced to the characters in such a contrived fashion that they hardly seem believable. Give me the misfortunate characters of Dickens any day! These poorly developed personnages fail to show even a modicum of emotion, whining on and on about how the queen must choose an heir.
Perhaps the French tastes have sunk since their days of glory. These days, it seems, we see more and more plays which merely repeat the gruff dialogue of the streets, telling stories so old and worn they seem laughable.
If the French wish to burn this play, so be it. I see no need to keep such literary rubbish around.

Backstory for Dr. Phillip Gabroman

The Symposium on Unknown History is a world-renowned event held once every four years. This year The Symposium is being hosted by the Erwight Raleigh Museum of Natural History and features an expert on the subjects of sunken continents and ancient lore: Dr. Phillip Gabroman (b. 1943).

Dr. Gabroman earned all of his three PhD’s from Miskatonic University in 1962 at the age of 19: making him the youngest graduate to earn three PhD’s at once. The more illustrious universities – Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth – only recognize one of his degrees: Ancient Mythology. He has been on many expeditions to exotic locations, including a National Geographic documentary in search of the lost continent of Mu at the age of 23.

The documentary was a complete failure and Dr. Gabroman became the laughing stock of academic society and was left bankrupt. He disappeared in early 1967 and resurfaced in 1988: in Peru. A missionary group was decommissioning a corrupted and neglected Spanish colonial-age sanatorium and bringing the patients to America for study and treatment. He was found, delirious, in the depths of a basement yammering and gibbering.

For six years he had been kept locked in the darkest most isolated cell while his mind purged itself through hell-fire. The pale, emaciated, scholar’s broken mind conjured up terrifying images and summoned the most inhuman screams from his tortured soul until his voice gave out. The staff completely ignored him, except for the rare feeding. He was alone with his terrible thoughts and his mind slowly cleansed itself while his body was ravaged by the effort.

After spending an additional two years institutionalized in America, Dr. Gabroman was deemed mentally fit to reenter society. He maintained a fairly low profile, scratching at the poverty line by writing hokey “non-fiction” about lost lands – like Mu – featuring bland cliché plots stolen from the pulp magazine “Weird Tales.”

In 1988, the aging Doctor was invited to speak at a science-fiction convention in Boston. His lecture on the lost continent of R’lyeh shattered even the strongest theories. Dr. Gabroman provided undeniable proof that over the millennia, the lost continent had shifted and was located somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Doctor was granted an Associate Professorship at Miskatonic University and spent the next 17 years utilizing the university’s vast library and resources to continue his research.

Eye of the Storm

I have survived to see the eye of the storm. The fearful thoughts from which this journal sprang have dissipated in the faint rays of the sun. I didn't sleep last night. But I did dream.
It is that horrible dream which I have tried to record here, only to find the harder I fight to remember, the farther it flees from my mind. And thankfully so. I do not want to recall that terror, that unbearable hopelessness. Yet, I continue to transcribe the things I saw.
The visions were not the cause of the fear I felt in that fitful slumber. There was something else. Something that even now as I write will not return to me. Something that horrid man in the mask said. Some strange truth he spoke. My mind will not let me hear the words.
The hurricane whirls and spins with me at the center. Calm winds soon become strong gales and rip the pages from my hands. I overturn my table as I start upright. There in the shadowy corner where the clouds gather and the fog swirls. He appears. He is speaking but I will not let myself hear. My knees lose feeling and I fall to the ground. Am I screaming? What is he telling me? Why can't I move?
The howl of the winds dies down and I lift my head from my desk. The faint rays of the sun fall on my shoulder, but I feel little warmth. As the clouds clear from the sky I shudder, knowing it is merely the eye of the storm.

Cold Like Glass

I dug up this poem recently. It's one I wrote a while ago: my first attempt at Lovecraftian poetry.

The last words I heard were
"Oh god! What have I done!"
And the phone went dead.
I thought the operator could help me.
Find the number and address of the call.
In the cold darkened room,
I found a man.
Completely featureless,
Blank.
A yellow mask obscured his face.
Even his eyes were hidden
by deformed grooves,
carved in a bastardized style of eyes
not known to this earth.
Reaching to remove the mask
I saw there were no seams but
could not reach his face.
My fingers were pried open,
open as though pressed flat against a wall.
Yet the contour war far too smooth.
And cold
like glass.

Remembering...

As I walked briskly towards the warmth of my girlfriend's house, a soft haunting melody wafted through the cold. Though I knew it was simply a neighbor practicing the violin, the music chilled me to the soul. The weather left me cold outside, but these eerie sounds gave new life to old and dark memories and left me frozen deep inside.

A shriek of agony and the music stopped

footprints

Tracks in the soft moss
treads to be exact
the soles of shoes.
Darkened corridor
a cave sloping down
misty with the breath of the earth.
the constant dripping of water
carving away
keeping time.
deeper still.
deeper still.

New tracks in the moss
footprints to be exact
i fear the thing that made them.
Shadowed horror,
dweller of the cave,
choking black breath not of this earth.
the constant dripping of water
carries me away
across time.
deeper still.
deeper still.

pause button

The night air was painfully cold, the two figures walked briskly. No clouds in the sky meant a full moon could shine brightly, and also that there was more cold ahead than warmth.
"You know what would be great, Robert? A 'pause' button. You'd press the button and time would stop. Not for you, though. You could go aroud, do your things, and then resume time when you were done. For example. If you have to wake up at 9, you could set your alarm apropriately, and then when the buzzer goes off, you press the Pause button instead of the snooze button. Now time is stopped and you can sleep as long as you want. When you wake naturally you would resume time and be ready to greet the day as if you had woken up with your alarm."
"That's all well and good, Stephen, but someone is bound to notice."
"Who could notice? And if they did, you could just pause and walk away and they'd never catch you."
"I'm not talking about people. There are things that dwell beyond the threshold of human comprehension and thank god for that distance. Were the human mind capable of seeing the forces---
A black shadow passed over the moon. Only Robert seemed to notice. Stephen just looked at him curiously.
"Look, Stephen, you believe in extra-terrestrial life? In aliens and the like?"
"Sure."
"Well, think about it. The human system of physics is cumbersome and arbitrary at times. It is a complicated means of explaining a simple unnameable rule. There are others who understand that simplicity. Dwellers beyond time. Beyond our feeble minds' reach. Do you think contact with one of these would be a matter of a hand-shake and a hello? Preposterous! The mere sight of such an anomolous creature would shock the human mind into a stupor. Those with a strong enough will might retain the mental faculties of a three year old when they discover that communication with the creature is conducted on a level so high that the avenues of knowledge it opens in the humand's pahtetic grey matter simply tear it asunder!"
Stephen stepped back. Robert was trembling, his voice elevated and excited, tears streaming from his eyes and the hairs on his neck standing on end. It was as if he were talking about events and places that were sitting right before his eyes. Stephen saw him slide a hand into a pocket on his jacket and produce a small grey box with a red circluar... a button! by god it was a button! ... and faster than this thought crossed Stephen's mind, his friend was gone.