Hello friends! For aesthetic, social and utilitarian reasons, I've moved this blog. It's now here:
Whoosh!!!!
But don't worry! Everything will be exactly the same over there, but better. I even moved all of the older posts. Think of it as an early-life crisis.
There will be no more posts here. I will probably delete this blog in a few weeks. You have been warned.
M.M. Jordahl
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
Writing Habits
Hey, kids. I have a question. I want to know if I'm alone in this:
Do you make playlists for your characters?
I mean, I know that lots of people have playlists for specific stories, and almost everyone listens to music of some sort while they're writing (let me know if you don't!), but how specifically targeted is that music? What is it that drives the choice? It is even conscious?
I, for one, have almost ten different playlists currently on my iPod dedicated to specific characters. Some of them have been on there for years. Some of them only have four songs, while others have thirty. I choose the songs based almost entirely on lyrics, but sometimes tone has an effect, too. For some reason, Linkin Park gets along swimmingly with one particular story from my past. If you ever want to write a story with excessive angst, I'd highly recommend them as musical inspiration.
But do you know what's really strange about me? I also like to put the playlists on even when I'm not writing. I put them on when I'm walking to class, or to the bus, or even when I'm just hanging out in my room. I sing along and pretend that I'm the character speaking, and I imagine who they would be saying those things to, and how they'd say it, and under what circumstances.
Sometimes, I even find songs that represent more than one character, and then I stage entire scenes in my head--epic arguments between friends and rivals, sappy love scenes between romantic interests, sometimes even battles. There are also, often, cut scenes with the characters up on stage rocking out to their songs, like a music video. Most of them are rock stars.
Is this normal? Or am I, yet again, proving myself a freak of nature? Maybe this is just because I'm a movie person and a total sucker for musicals? Let me know. Because sometimes I wonder about my own mental health.
But, to be clear, I'm not saying I think character playlists are a bad thing. I would be a mighty fine hypocrite if I did. In fact, I think music is a brilliantly effective way to get inspired to work. After all, art comes in all forms; I'm just borrowing from one to develop another. I've even considered writing a story entirely based on lyrical sentiments in CDs, but then it would just be an episode of Glee. Not that I don't like Glee. Maybe I shouldn't have admitted that.
In related news, no, I haven't made a playlist for my novel yet. Although I do have a pre-existing one consisting entirely of reggae music that is filling that position fabulously. Oh, Bob Marley, you are fabulous.
Lyrically yours,
M.M. Jordahl
"Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought." -E.Y. Harburg
Progress Report
Bottom of the Garden: uh...not sure what my word count is 'cause I've been handwriting...but almost halfway through chapter 3 for the second time! Stupid outline changes....
Do you make playlists for your characters?
I mean, I know that lots of people have playlists for specific stories, and almost everyone listens to music of some sort while they're writing (let me know if you don't!), but how specifically targeted is that music? What is it that drives the choice? It is even conscious?
I, for one, have almost ten different playlists currently on my iPod dedicated to specific characters. Some of them have been on there for years. Some of them only have four songs, while others have thirty. I choose the songs based almost entirely on lyrics, but sometimes tone has an effect, too. For some reason, Linkin Park gets along swimmingly with one particular story from my past. If you ever want to write a story with excessive angst, I'd highly recommend them as musical inspiration.
But do you know what's really strange about me? I also like to put the playlists on even when I'm not writing. I put them on when I'm walking to class, or to the bus, or even when I'm just hanging out in my room. I sing along and pretend that I'm the character speaking, and I imagine who they would be saying those things to, and how they'd say it, and under what circumstances.
Sometimes, I even find songs that represent more than one character, and then I stage entire scenes in my head--epic arguments between friends and rivals, sappy love scenes between romantic interests, sometimes even battles. There are also, often, cut scenes with the characters up on stage rocking out to their songs, like a music video. Most of them are rock stars.
Is this normal? Or am I, yet again, proving myself a freak of nature? Maybe this is just because I'm a movie person and a total sucker for musicals? Let me know. Because sometimes I wonder about my own mental health.
But, to be clear, I'm not saying I think character playlists are a bad thing. I would be a mighty fine hypocrite if I did. In fact, I think music is a brilliantly effective way to get inspired to work. After all, art comes in all forms; I'm just borrowing from one to develop another. I've even considered writing a story entirely based on lyrical sentiments in CDs, but then it would just be an episode of Glee. Not that I don't like Glee. Maybe I shouldn't have admitted that.
In related news, no, I haven't made a playlist for my novel yet. Although I do have a pre-existing one consisting entirely of reggae music that is filling that position fabulously. Oh, Bob Marley, you are fabulous.
Lyrically yours,
M.M. Jordahl
"Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought." -E.Y. Harburg
Progress Report
Bottom of the Garden: uh...not sure what my word count is 'cause I've been handwriting...but almost halfway through chapter 3 for the second time! Stupid outline changes....
Friday, April 29, 2011
Unlikely Things
It's been a long, long week folks. Much has been going on, especially with the realization that the outline of Garden, upon which I depend for figuring out what to write each time, entirely neglected the actual events of my 3rd chapter. No, Past Me, "they become friends over the years" is not sufficient plot action. Back to the drawing board.
But after much pondering and head-scratching and throwing pens across the room, I figured out roughly what I want to do. And then I had my workshop on Tuesday, and thus already want to change several major points in chapters 1 and 2. C'est la vie, I suppose.
That said, I didn't really come up with anything new this week. I worked on Garden in Write Away! yesterday (and wrote a short thing about tea and unicorns that made no sense whatsoever), and since I don't want to post any of that up here, instead I've typed up an older piece, also written at Write Away!, just quite a long time ago. It was inspired by something one of my fellow writers said, which I discovered written in the margins of my notebook:
"Who would bring an English major on a starship?" -Shane Clyburn
This story was my attempt to answer that question. *SPOILER:* it totally doesn't answer that question, but succeeds quite admirably in asking it over and over again. Also, it's written from a female perspective, which I almost never do (surprisingly enough). I don't think that's very obvious from the story itself. I really need to work on that....
Ineptly yours,
M.M. Jordahl
P.S. On an entirely unrelated note: I have tickets to see Tim Minchin on June 25th! And they're FLOOR SEATS!!! :D
Unlikely Things
I’m not really sure what I’m doing here. Not that I’m complaining or anything. I mean, I’ve pretty much spent my life staring up into the stars and wishing I had a spaceship. It’s just that I never thought I’d actually get to be on one, outside of my dreams and waking fantasies.
Of course, when I was a kid, I was sure I’d be an astronaut, but high school physics quickly quelled that dream with a big, fat F on my report card. So that begs the question: how the hell did my B.A. in English land me on the far side of the moon?
Even now, after all the flight testing and space suit training and getting needled in every extremity of my body, I can’t figure it out. The General tells me I’ve been selected for my skills, whatever the hell those might be. I find it hard to believe that my almost miraculous ability to conjugate could qualify me for anything short of a by-line on a few dime store scifi novels, much less a ticket to the upper atmosphere. Houston, we have a problem.
The doors behind me slid open, breaking my reverie. I’d been left alone with my thoughts a lot lately, and they were starting to get on my nerves, so I was happy to see a small, sprightly woman with close-cropped brown hair float into the room, her eyes flickering with an intelligence I could never hope to possess. I had seen her before. Hundreds of times, my gut told me. The curve of her jaw was as familiar as my own, the sway of her delicate wrists as she balanced in the door frame, the long, smooth line of her legs…but who was she?
“You. Author. Come with me.” Her tone left no room for dawdling, but I found myself quite unable to move, staring into her fierce hazel eyes. She snorted irately, rolling her eyes. “What, you can’t navigate in zero gee?”
“No, I—” My tongue twisted on itself, effectively throttling any hope I had of appearing intelligence. I swallowed it back and tried again, my words shaky in the awkward silence. “Who are you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Does it matter?”
“No, I just—I mean, yeah. It does. I’d like to know.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What, are you a lesbian or something?”
“No! I—I mean…are you?”
“No.”
The awkward was stifling. I tried to mask it with a cough, but then it was more awkward.
“Are you coming or do you need help?” she finally reiterated, arms crossed resolutely over her slim chest. In zero gee, the gesture made her look like a genie, or a particularly unfriendly fairy.
“No, no, I’m coming,” I followed her out of the cramped space, keeping pace as best I could while we drifted down the hallway. I tried to get her name again, but every attempt at conversation was met with a scowl that could have shriveled potatoes. It felt like centuries before we stopped outside the suit room, and all the while half-formed names drifted about my head, trying to attach themselves to her, but none succeeded.
The door hissed open, and she was gone before I could even thank her, lost among the endless rows of multicolored space suits.
“Ah! Miss Buehl!” called the chipper suit attendant, thrusting an eager hand forward to meet mine. “We’ve been expecting you.”
...okay, okay, here's the unicorn thing. But don't say I didn't warn you. XD
An Even More Unlikely Thing
"Jerome! Jerome! Come quick!"
Katie's little fists shook the door, rattling its rusty hinges.
"Go away," Jerome answered, taking another sip of his tea. His room swam about him, warping and twisting in a pleasing way. He smiled to himself.
"Jerome! You've gotta see!"
Her shrill voice was like ice water down his pants. He growled to himself, desperate to maintain his zen. The door rattled louder than ever, acting as a baseline for Katie's high-pitched whine. "Jeromeeee, come oooooon...."
"ALRIGHT!" Jerome snapped, slamming his tea on the table. Some of the precious liquid sloshed onto the carpet, and he cursed to himself. "This had better be good!"
He threw open his bedroom door to glare down at his little sister.
"What, Katie? What's so important that you had to bug me during my--"
"Look!" Katie squealed, pointing down the hallway. Jerome turned, then let out a far girlier shriek than anything Katie had managed.
"What the f—Katie, what the hell is it?" He demanded.
"It's a unicorn," she replied, grinning thoroughly. "I found him in the basement."
"Found him in the..." Jerome couldn't finish the sentence. His head was spinning. He glanced back into his room, where his bag of tea leaves sat innocently mocking him.
"Do you think mom will let me keep him?" Katie enthused. Jerome stared down the hall, into the stupidly huge eyes of the glittery pink beast.
"I am going to kill Lucas," he concluded. "That is some nasty shit."
But after much pondering and head-scratching and throwing pens across the room, I figured out roughly what I want to do. And then I had my workshop on Tuesday, and thus already want to change several major points in chapters 1 and 2. C'est la vie, I suppose.
That said, I didn't really come up with anything new this week. I worked on Garden in Write Away! yesterday (and wrote a short thing about tea and unicorns that made no sense whatsoever), and since I don't want to post any of that up here, instead I've typed up an older piece, also written at Write Away!, just quite a long time ago. It was inspired by something one of my fellow writers said, which I discovered written in the margins of my notebook:
"Who would bring an English major on a starship?" -Shane Clyburn
This story was my attempt to answer that question. *SPOILER:* it totally doesn't answer that question, but succeeds quite admirably in asking it over and over again. Also, it's written from a female perspective, which I almost never do (surprisingly enough). I don't think that's very obvious from the story itself. I really need to work on that....
Ineptly yours,
M.M. Jordahl
P.S. On an entirely unrelated note: I have tickets to see Tim Minchin on June 25th! And they're FLOOR SEATS!!! :D
Unlikely Things
I’m not really sure what I’m doing here. Not that I’m complaining or anything. I mean, I’ve pretty much spent my life staring up into the stars and wishing I had a spaceship. It’s just that I never thought I’d actually get to be on one, outside of my dreams and waking fantasies.
Of course, when I was a kid, I was sure I’d be an astronaut, but high school physics quickly quelled that dream with a big, fat F on my report card. So that begs the question: how the hell did my B.A. in English land me on the far side of the moon?
Even now, after all the flight testing and space suit training and getting needled in every extremity of my body, I can’t figure it out. The General tells me I’ve been selected for my skills, whatever the hell those might be. I find it hard to believe that my almost miraculous ability to conjugate could qualify me for anything short of a by-line on a few dime store scifi novels, much less a ticket to the upper atmosphere. Houston, we have a problem.
The doors behind me slid open, breaking my reverie. I’d been left alone with my thoughts a lot lately, and they were starting to get on my nerves, so I was happy to see a small, sprightly woman with close-cropped brown hair float into the room, her eyes flickering with an intelligence I could never hope to possess. I had seen her before. Hundreds of times, my gut told me. The curve of her jaw was as familiar as my own, the sway of her delicate wrists as she balanced in the door frame, the long, smooth line of her legs…but who was she?
“You. Author. Come with me.” Her tone left no room for dawdling, but I found myself quite unable to move, staring into her fierce hazel eyes. She snorted irately, rolling her eyes. “What, you can’t navigate in zero gee?”
“No, I—” My tongue twisted on itself, effectively throttling any hope I had of appearing intelligence. I swallowed it back and tried again, my words shaky in the awkward silence. “Who are you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Does it matter?”
“No, I just—I mean, yeah. It does. I’d like to know.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What, are you a lesbian or something?”
“No! I—I mean…are you?”
“No.”
The awkward was stifling. I tried to mask it with a cough, but then it was more awkward.
“Are you coming or do you need help?” she finally reiterated, arms crossed resolutely over her slim chest. In zero gee, the gesture made her look like a genie, or a particularly unfriendly fairy.
“No, no, I’m coming,” I followed her out of the cramped space, keeping pace as best I could while we drifted down the hallway. I tried to get her name again, but every attempt at conversation was met with a scowl that could have shriveled potatoes. It felt like centuries before we stopped outside the suit room, and all the while half-formed names drifted about my head, trying to attach themselves to her, but none succeeded.
The door hissed open, and she was gone before I could even thank her, lost among the endless rows of multicolored space suits.
“Ah! Miss Buehl!” called the chipper suit attendant, thrusting an eager hand forward to meet mine. “We’ve been expecting you.”
...okay, okay, here's the unicorn thing. But don't say I didn't warn you. XD
An Even More Unlikely Thing
"Jerome! Jerome! Come quick!"
Katie's little fists shook the door, rattling its rusty hinges.
"Go away," Jerome answered, taking another sip of his tea. His room swam about him, warping and twisting in a pleasing way. He smiled to himself.
"Jerome! You've gotta see!"
Her shrill voice was like ice water down his pants. He growled to himself, desperate to maintain his zen. The door rattled louder than ever, acting as a baseline for Katie's high-pitched whine. "Jeromeeee, come oooooon...."
"ALRIGHT!" Jerome snapped, slamming his tea on the table. Some of the precious liquid sloshed onto the carpet, and he cursed to himself. "This had better be good!"
He threw open his bedroom door to glare down at his little sister.
"What, Katie? What's so important that you had to bug me during my--"
"Look!" Katie squealed, pointing down the hallway. Jerome turned, then let out a far girlier shriek than anything Katie had managed.
"What the f—Katie, what the hell is it?" He demanded.
"It's a unicorn," she replied, grinning thoroughly. "I found him in the basement."
"Found him in the..." Jerome couldn't finish the sentence. His head was spinning. He glanced back into his room, where his bag of tea leaves sat innocently mocking him.
"Do you think mom will let me keep him?" Katie enthused. Jerome stared down the hall, into the stupidly huge eyes of the glittery pink beast.
"I am going to kill Lucas," he concluded. "That is some nasty shit."
Monday, April 25, 2011
Thesis Statement
In keeping with last week's theme of "questions writers hear a lot," I have a new one I'd like to address. It's one that I've been getting a lot lately, especially with yesterday's Easter gathering, where various family members all wanted to know the same thing: What is your novel about?
To the average person, this might seem like the easiest question in the world. After all, they get asked that all the time, about every book they read and movie they see and song they hear, and they have no problem answering it. Fight Club? Oh yeah, it's about this crazy dude who has Brad Pitt in his brain, and they blow shit up. Lord of the Rings? Everybody's fighting over this evil ring, and then this little dude throws it into a volcano. The Wizard of Oz? It's about tripping on LSD (seriously, have you watched that movie lately?).
But those aren't what those stories are about; they're just plot points. To the person creating the story, it exists on a million different levels, and it's almost impossible to know what to tell everyone else. Any engaged reader or movie-goer knows this, inherently. Fight Club is about complacency, and losing your individual, primal self in larger society. Lord of the Rings is about the battle between good and evil, and having to overcome the evil inside yourself before you can fight it elsewhere. The Wizard of Oz is about recognizing what's really important to you.
And this goes for all stories, no matter where you find them. Take the novel I'm currently working on. The average layperson would say "it's about a kid who falls in love with a priestess, and then the island blows up but he escapes on a raft." Easy, right? But when I try to give that answer, I always feel like I'm selling myself short. It's not enough to say it's about "a kid" because it's not about just any kid. It's about Pau, and his personality and his quirks and his worldview, and he cannot be separated from the story. And it's not enough to say he loves "a priestess," because he loves Yara, and she is everything that he loves and everything that he hates, and both his exact opposite and his perfect match. And yes, eventually, the island explodes and he escapes on a raft. But the story is so much more than that. It's about science and religion and God(s) and individuality and balance and social deviance and expectations and love and family and primitiveness and the basic human need to be cared about and, yes, an exploding volcano. And whenever somebody sidles up to me and says, "so, what's your novel about, anyway?" all of these things flash through my head in the same instant and I'm left there stumbling over my words in an impressively inarticulate manner, and eventually I'll say something like:
"It's about a tribe, and this kid who asks all the wrong questions, but then he falls in love and starts asking the right questions. And it's kind of about religion, and science, and how, like, some people have to believe and some people can't believe, and...and..."
And then I see people's eyes glaze over, and I want to scream at them, "No! Wait! I'm not saying it right! It's really good, I swear!" But they just shrug and give me that condescending half-smile that says "don't quit your day job," even as their mouths assure me that they want to read it, and I wonder for the millionth time what the hell I'm doing with my life.
Honestly, I don't know what the point of this post is. People are never going to stop asking what my novel is about, and I don't want them to. As difficult as the question is to answer, it's still the best sort of attention a writer can get. I only wish there was an easier way to bridge the gap between my head and my mouth, because I cannot possibly condense 80+ pages of story into a few sentences appropriate for conversation, and I don't think I will ever be able to. Even if my screenwriting teachers tell me I should be.
So, fellow writers, I ask you: How do you react to this dreaded question?
Aggravatingly yours,
M.M. Jordahl
"My friend invented Cliff's Notes. When I asked him how he got such a great idea, he said, 'Well, first I...I just...well, to make a long story short....'" -Stephen Wright
P.S. Watch author John Green try to explain what his newest story is about (0:53). His inarticulateness gives me hope. Also, you should watch other vlogbrothers videos.
Progress Report:
the Bottom of the Garden: 9,103 words
Prince Charming: nadda...I really ought to get on this...
To the average person, this might seem like the easiest question in the world. After all, they get asked that all the time, about every book they read and movie they see and song they hear, and they have no problem answering it. Fight Club? Oh yeah, it's about this crazy dude who has Brad Pitt in his brain, and they blow shit up. Lord of the Rings? Everybody's fighting over this evil ring, and then this little dude throws it into a volcano. The Wizard of Oz? It's about tripping on LSD (seriously, have you watched that movie lately?).
But those aren't what those stories are about; they're just plot points. To the person creating the story, it exists on a million different levels, and it's almost impossible to know what to tell everyone else. Any engaged reader or movie-goer knows this, inherently. Fight Club is about complacency, and losing your individual, primal self in larger society. Lord of the Rings is about the battle between good and evil, and having to overcome the evil inside yourself before you can fight it elsewhere. The Wizard of Oz is about recognizing what's really important to you.
And this goes for all stories, no matter where you find them. Take the novel I'm currently working on. The average layperson would say "it's about a kid who falls in love with a priestess, and then the island blows up but he escapes on a raft." Easy, right? But when I try to give that answer, I always feel like I'm selling myself short. It's not enough to say it's about "a kid" because it's not about just any kid. It's about Pau, and his personality and his quirks and his worldview, and he cannot be separated from the story. And it's not enough to say he loves "a priestess," because he loves Yara, and she is everything that he loves and everything that he hates, and both his exact opposite and his perfect match. And yes, eventually, the island explodes and he escapes on a raft. But the story is so much more than that. It's about science and religion and God(s) and individuality and balance and social deviance and expectations and love and family and primitiveness and the basic human need to be cared about and, yes, an exploding volcano. And whenever somebody sidles up to me and says, "so, what's your novel about, anyway?" all of these things flash through my head in the same instant and I'm left there stumbling over my words in an impressively inarticulate manner, and eventually I'll say something like:
"It's about a tribe, and this kid who asks all the wrong questions, but then he falls in love and starts asking the right questions. And it's kind of about religion, and science, and how, like, some people have to believe and some people can't believe, and...and..."
And then I see people's eyes glaze over, and I want to scream at them, "No! Wait! I'm not saying it right! It's really good, I swear!" But they just shrug and give me that condescending half-smile that says "don't quit your day job," even as their mouths assure me that they want to read it, and I wonder for the millionth time what the hell I'm doing with my life.
Honestly, I don't know what the point of this post is. People are never going to stop asking what my novel is about, and I don't want them to. As difficult as the question is to answer, it's still the best sort of attention a writer can get. I only wish there was an easier way to bridge the gap between my head and my mouth, because I cannot possibly condense 80+ pages of story into a few sentences appropriate for conversation, and I don't think I will ever be able to. Even if my screenwriting teachers tell me I should be.
So, fellow writers, I ask you: How do you react to this dreaded question?
Aggravatingly yours,
M.M. Jordahl
"My friend invented Cliff's Notes. When I asked him how he got such a great idea, he said, 'Well, first I...I just...well, to make a long story short....'" -Stephen Wright
P.S. Watch author John Green try to explain what his newest story is about (0:53). His inarticulateness gives me hope. Also, you should watch other vlogbrothers videos.
Progress Report:
the Bottom of the Garden: 9,103 words
Prince Charming: nadda...I really ought to get on this...
Friday, April 22, 2011
Aladdin
Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday...
...well, it had to happen sometime. Might as well get it out of the way now, right?
So anyway, it is Friday and I have a new story for you. Well, sort of. I have the beginning of a new story. I started it at Write Away! yesterday (I suspect you are starting to see why I picked Friday as my day for uploading creative things; it is, after all, the day after Thursday), where the challenge was to re-boot a classic story. I also re-booted Hansel & Gretel, but it wasn't nearly as much fun as Aladdin. Enjoy.
Now I'm going to go bask in the rare beauty of Seattle sunlight.
Ecstatically yours,
M.M. Jordahl
Aladdin
I met him in this crap little club down on seventh and Broadway called the Cave of Wonder. You know, the kind of place where the music is too loud, the liquor is half gasoline and most of the strippers are pregnant. He was hunched over at the bar, elbow holes worn in his leather jacket, grit stains in his jeans, goatee marinating in a half-empty glass of mac-n-jacks. As I settled in beside him, I noticed he was barefoot.
“Rum and coke,” I told the bartender. The greasy man started awake and turned to squint at me, beer dribbling down his neck.
“Hey,” he said, and his voice boomed as deep as the club’s subwoofer. “What’s your name?”
I wouldn’t have answered him, but I was alone on a Friday night.
“Al,” I said.
“Well Al,” he giggled, producing a rusty flask from his pocket. “I’m going to make all your dreams come true.”
“No thanks,” I told him firmly. The bartender slid my drink across the counter and I made to escape, but the man seized my arm. I scowled my best at him. “Do you mind?” I demanded, drawing myself up to full height. “I ain’t a fairy.”
The man guffawed, as though I’d told the best joke in the world. “Neither am I,” he laughed. “Can’t be bothered with those pansy-ass bastards.”
I tried to shrug out of his grip, but he was stronger than he looked.
“I still ain’t interested,” I insisted. For a second, I thought he might let me go, but then he leaned in closer, his alcohol-stenched voice barely audible over the pulsing of the music as he waved the flask in my face.
“Hear me out,” he pleaded. A fire burned in his eyes, and for a moment I stood transfixed, unable even to breathe. Finally, mournfully, he let his hand fall from my arm and slumped back into his drink, flask disappearing into his jacket. “Or don’t.”
His words echoed through the glass. I heard my own voice answer, as though through a drunken haze: “…okay.”
He turned his sunken eyes on me for a moment, then grinned, his teeth yellow and crooked. “I knew you’d come around,” he jeered.
“Don’t make me regret it,” I answered, but I was already regretting it. I downed my rum and coke, but he was still there, grinning at me.
“Come on,” he said. “Back alley.”
“What? No, no, no, I told you—I ain’t a fairy.”
He rolled his eyes and grabbed my wrist again. “Just come on.”
It was cold in the alley. Cold enough that the muddy water in the gutters had frozen into muddy ice, and I could feel the sharp winter air penetrating my lungs. I had to stomp both feet and hug myself to get warm, but the stranger didn’t seem bothered. He stopped in front of a peeling dumpster and stared at me for a moment, his beetle-black eyes sparking.
“Here,” he said, and again that rusty flask was before me. I stared at it, confused.
“…what?”
“Don’t you know anything? Jesus Christ!” He stomped his feet impatiently. “Rub it!”
“What? No!” The flask was so close I could smell the rust. I pulled away, trying not to breathe too hard. “I don’t want tetanus.”
“God damn it, just do it!”
Before I could protest more, he seized my hand and pressed it to the cool, rough metal. Except it wasn’t cold. It was on fire.
“Ah!” I cried, intelligently, but when I tried to pull my hand away I found it was quite stuck. The flask glowed an angry red as the burning sensation began to creep up my arm, and the stranger let out a shrill noise that might have been laughter.
“Yes, yes, yes!” He was shouting, practically skipping with glee.
“What the hell, man?” I shouted, trying to throw the demonic thing at him. It held fast to my hand. “Get it off! Get it the hell off me!”
“No!” He closed his eyes, standing suddenly very still in the middle of the alleyway. “It’s almost here. I can feel it!”
“Feel what?” Sheer panic clawed at my insides, and I began banging the flask against the dumpster, but only succeeded in bruising my hand. A screech drew my attention back to the stranger, and I quickly forgot about the flask.
He was glowing. Well, not glowing so much as burning. Bright, white tongues of fire burst forth from his body, dissolving his clothing in an instant. He seemed almost to be floating, his head stretched to somewhere far above me. He cried out in pain, but his words were ecstatic, heavy with a delight I haven’t the balls to repeat here. I’m not that kind of man.
What happened next, I may never know. I fell suddenly into darkness, and the last thing I remember is the repulsive stench of the sidewalk.
...well, it had to happen sometime. Might as well get it out of the way now, right?
So anyway, it is Friday and I have a new story for you. Well, sort of. I have the beginning of a new story. I started it at Write Away! yesterday (I suspect you are starting to see why I picked Friday as my day for uploading creative things; it is, after all, the day after Thursday), where the challenge was to re-boot a classic story. I also re-booted Hansel & Gretel, but it wasn't nearly as much fun as Aladdin. Enjoy.
Now I'm going to go bask in the rare beauty of Seattle sunlight.
Ecstatically yours,
M.M. Jordahl
Aladdin
I met him in this crap little club down on seventh and Broadway called the Cave of Wonder. You know, the kind of place where the music is too loud, the liquor is half gasoline and most of the strippers are pregnant. He was hunched over at the bar, elbow holes worn in his leather jacket, grit stains in his jeans, goatee marinating in a half-empty glass of mac-n-jacks. As I settled in beside him, I noticed he was barefoot.
“Rum and coke,” I told the bartender. The greasy man started awake and turned to squint at me, beer dribbling down his neck.
“Hey,” he said, and his voice boomed as deep as the club’s subwoofer. “What’s your name?”
I wouldn’t have answered him, but I was alone on a Friday night.
“Al,” I said.
“Well Al,” he giggled, producing a rusty flask from his pocket. “I’m going to make all your dreams come true.”
“No thanks,” I told him firmly. The bartender slid my drink across the counter and I made to escape, but the man seized my arm. I scowled my best at him. “Do you mind?” I demanded, drawing myself up to full height. “I ain’t a fairy.”
The man guffawed, as though I’d told the best joke in the world. “Neither am I,” he laughed. “Can’t be bothered with those pansy-ass bastards.”
I tried to shrug out of his grip, but he was stronger than he looked.
“I still ain’t interested,” I insisted. For a second, I thought he might let me go, but then he leaned in closer, his alcohol-stenched voice barely audible over the pulsing of the music as he waved the flask in my face.
“Hear me out,” he pleaded. A fire burned in his eyes, and for a moment I stood transfixed, unable even to breathe. Finally, mournfully, he let his hand fall from my arm and slumped back into his drink, flask disappearing into his jacket. “Or don’t.”
His words echoed through the glass. I heard my own voice answer, as though through a drunken haze: “…okay.”
He turned his sunken eyes on me for a moment, then grinned, his teeth yellow and crooked. “I knew you’d come around,” he jeered.
“Don’t make me regret it,” I answered, but I was already regretting it. I downed my rum and coke, but he was still there, grinning at me.
“Come on,” he said. “Back alley.”
“What? No, no, no, I told you—I ain’t a fairy.”
He rolled his eyes and grabbed my wrist again. “Just come on.”
It was cold in the alley. Cold enough that the muddy water in the gutters had frozen into muddy ice, and I could feel the sharp winter air penetrating my lungs. I had to stomp both feet and hug myself to get warm, but the stranger didn’t seem bothered. He stopped in front of a peeling dumpster and stared at me for a moment, his beetle-black eyes sparking.
“Here,” he said, and again that rusty flask was before me. I stared at it, confused.
“…what?”
“Don’t you know anything? Jesus Christ!” He stomped his feet impatiently. “Rub it!”
“What? No!” The flask was so close I could smell the rust. I pulled away, trying not to breathe too hard. “I don’t want tetanus.”
“God damn it, just do it!”
Before I could protest more, he seized my hand and pressed it to the cool, rough metal. Except it wasn’t cold. It was on fire.
“Ah!” I cried, intelligently, but when I tried to pull my hand away I found it was quite stuck. The flask glowed an angry red as the burning sensation began to creep up my arm, and the stranger let out a shrill noise that might have been laughter.
“Yes, yes, yes!” He was shouting, practically skipping with glee.
“What the hell, man?” I shouted, trying to throw the demonic thing at him. It held fast to my hand. “Get it off! Get it the hell off me!”
“No!” He closed his eyes, standing suddenly very still in the middle of the alleyway. “It’s almost here. I can feel it!”
“Feel what?” Sheer panic clawed at my insides, and I began banging the flask against the dumpster, but only succeeded in bruising my hand. A screech drew my attention back to the stranger, and I quickly forgot about the flask.
He was glowing. Well, not glowing so much as burning. Bright, white tongues of fire burst forth from his body, dissolving his clothing in an instant. He seemed almost to be floating, his head stretched to somewhere far above me. He cried out in pain, but his words were ecstatic, heavy with a delight I haven’t the balls to repeat here. I’m not that kind of man.
What happened next, I may never know. I fell suddenly into darkness, and the last thing I remember is the repulsive stench of the sidewalk.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Idea Genesis: Ultimately Unimportant
In ancient Greece, genius was thought to exist outside of the body, in the form of a daemon or muse who supplied inspiration for whatever human happened to be attached to them. This was a lovely theory, because it made it easy for writers to answer the question, "Where do you get your ideas?"
But in modern times, with the advent of individualism and personal responsibility, the answer to this question is no longer so obvious. Writers the world over get plagued with this question, inevitably asked in every interview, and it's nearly impossible to answer, though authors often try. The truth is, nobody really knows where they come from. Thin air, the multiverse, nowhere...all equally true and deeply unsatisfactory answers. Neil Gaiman wrote an entire blog post on this subject.
So, I have presumptuously taken it upon myself to propose a newer, better version of this question. One that can be answered satisfactorily, and might actually be helpful to aspiring writers wanting to emulate their heroes:
Once you have an idea, what do you do with it?
This may seem blatantly obvious: you write it down. Duh. But I don't think it's that simple, and I'm sure any halfway experienced writer would agree with me. The truth is, the way you handle an idea is far more important that the idea itself or where it comes from.
Of the thousands of ideas have crept through my mind in the course of my lifetime, I've only picked a few dozen to actually develop, and of those few dozen, almost none of them have come to full fruition. They all get stuck somewhere between my head and the paper, and no amount of pushing from me can get them out. Ultimately, frustration forces me to abandon them, still half-born and screaming, to the dark, dusty recesses of my hard drive.
But there's a price to be paid for aborting these ideas. They haunt the furthest corners of my mind, like vengeful ex-boyfriends determined to ruin whatever relationship I'm currently cultivating. And so, I have dedicated a disproportionate amount of my creative energy toward figuring out how to avoid this problem.
When I first started writing, before I had even encountered the concept of "spelling," I was convinced the most important thing was plot. If I knew what was going to happen in the story, I could write it all down no problem. I would write brief outlines of each story in advance, sometimes only in my head, as though I were about to write an essay. This method gave birth to a number of hideously shallow projects and flat characters that I cringe to think of now, but more importantly I found that this method was, ultimately, boring. Why bother writing it if I already knew exactly what was going to happen? Where was the fun in that?
And so, as I got older, I turned my attention to character. After all, wasn't the protagonist the most important part of a story? This thinking was probably at least partially rooted in my affinity for playing imaginary games (a habit that started in first grade and only grew stronger until well into high school, and even a few years beyond that; I would highly recommend it to any child), where my best friend Emily and I would start new "games" with a random assortment of people and only the very vaguest of settings. The elaborate worlds that grew out of these games convinced me that character was the root of all story, and that was the basis I operated on for years.
Thus, whenever I got the itch to start a new project, I started with character design. I would make long, complicated charts documenting every detail of every character, right down to their zodiac sign. I would hunt the internet for pictures of models who looked like them. I would write their diaries. Anything to figure out who they really were.
But in the past few years, I've found that assumption to be the biggest mistake I've ever made. There is something that, to me, is far more important than plot or character or anything else, and that is theme.
I first realized my affinity for theme when trying to write my screenplay Prince Charming, which initially occurred to me in early high school when I still thought character was the most important thing. The story's foundation lay in its two main characters, Leo and Jules, who simply popped into my head one day and demanded that I let them out. I knew they were a movie, and I had attempted to write their story once before, but without a fundamental understanding of screenwriting the whole thing fell on its face. But when I found myself in a class, with professional screenwriters, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to re-acquaint myself with the two princes. Surely, this time it would work.
But as the class progressed, and the teachers stressed again and again the importance of having a central question to organize your screenplay around (an "armature statement", as they would say), I quickly realized that Prince Charming had no point. It only had Leo and Jules.
It took me the better part of a week to figure out what Prince Charming was really about, and the answer was disappointing: the importance of being true to yourself. A lovely sentiment, of course, but ultimately the least original idea of all time. Essentially, I was writing every Disney movie ever. I stuck with the story anyway, for its commercial value and because its simplicity helped clarify the teaching points in the class, but in the end it didn't appeal to me any more. It wasn't about something important to me.
And so, when I enrolled in English 485 and was presented with the challenge of writing a novel in its entirety, I started completely from scratch. No old ideas, re-vamped to fit a new situation. No dead characters or faded sets or even any of my tried-and-true authorial banter. No glimmer of those ex-ideas and their grudges against me. Just a blank slate, and a theme.
And, miraculously, the story was born, happy and healthy. The haze developed into setting, characters stretched their arms and yawned as they emerged from nothingness, and an entire plot wove its way among them as if it had always been there, and all with relatively little effort from me. Of course, the Bottom of the Garden isn't in any way finished. Indeed, I only have two chapters so far, but the rest of the writing is coming along nicely and I think I may even beat my self-set deadline for finishing the prose. And it's all because I started from a theme.
And when I look back at the works I've most enjoyed writing (Pravda, Zvezda, and most recently the opening pages of the Frankenstein Theory), they all had established themes from the get-go. And when I look at my favorite stories (Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and Galapagos, Isaac Asimov's the Last Question, even movies like American Beauty and Fight Club), they all have really strong themes. They know exactly what they're about, and they're not shy in announcing it.
As much as I hate to admit it, I'm a theme writer. So much for not being pretentious, hey?
And so, I pose the question to you: Once you have an idea, what do you do with it? Are you the kind of writer who works it into a plot? Are you someone who prefers to attach characters to it and see what comes out? Are you a theme snob, like me? Or do you have an entirely different approach?
Let me know. :)
Snobbishly yours,
M.M. Jordahl
"The Ideas aren't the hard bit. They're a small component of the whole. Creating believable people who do more or less what you tell them to is much harder." -Neil Gaiman
P.S. If you have some time to kill and want to see an amazing lecture on the creative process, check out Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love), "On Nurturing Creativity." Then spend some time poking around the rest of the lectures on TED Talks, because they're all fantastic.
Progress Report:
Bottom of the Garden: 2 chapters, 8,025 words completed
Prince Charming: Nothing done. Don't judge me. XD
But in modern times, with the advent of individualism and personal responsibility, the answer to this question is no longer so obvious. Writers the world over get plagued with this question, inevitably asked in every interview, and it's nearly impossible to answer, though authors often try. The truth is, nobody really knows where they come from. Thin air, the multiverse, nowhere...all equally true and deeply unsatisfactory answers. Neil Gaiman wrote an entire blog post on this subject.
So, I have presumptuously taken it upon myself to propose a newer, better version of this question. One that can be answered satisfactorily, and might actually be helpful to aspiring writers wanting to emulate their heroes:
Once you have an idea, what do you do with it?
This may seem blatantly obvious: you write it down. Duh. But I don't think it's that simple, and I'm sure any halfway experienced writer would agree with me. The truth is, the way you handle an idea is far more important that the idea itself or where it comes from.
Of the thousands of ideas have crept through my mind in the course of my lifetime, I've only picked a few dozen to actually develop, and of those few dozen, almost none of them have come to full fruition. They all get stuck somewhere between my head and the paper, and no amount of pushing from me can get them out. Ultimately, frustration forces me to abandon them, still half-born and screaming, to the dark, dusty recesses of my hard drive.
But there's a price to be paid for aborting these ideas. They haunt the furthest corners of my mind, like vengeful ex-boyfriends determined to ruin whatever relationship I'm currently cultivating. And so, I have dedicated a disproportionate amount of my creative energy toward figuring out how to avoid this problem.
When I first started writing, before I had even encountered the concept of "spelling," I was convinced the most important thing was plot. If I knew what was going to happen in the story, I could write it all down no problem. I would write brief outlines of each story in advance, sometimes only in my head, as though I were about to write an essay. This method gave birth to a number of hideously shallow projects and flat characters that I cringe to think of now, but more importantly I found that this method was, ultimately, boring. Why bother writing it if I already knew exactly what was going to happen? Where was the fun in that?
And so, as I got older, I turned my attention to character. After all, wasn't the protagonist the most important part of a story? This thinking was probably at least partially rooted in my affinity for playing imaginary games (a habit that started in first grade and only grew stronger until well into high school, and even a few years beyond that; I would highly recommend it to any child), where my best friend Emily and I would start new "games" with a random assortment of people and only the very vaguest of settings. The elaborate worlds that grew out of these games convinced me that character was the root of all story, and that was the basis I operated on for years.
Thus, whenever I got the itch to start a new project, I started with character design. I would make long, complicated charts documenting every detail of every character, right down to their zodiac sign. I would hunt the internet for pictures of models who looked like them. I would write their diaries. Anything to figure out who they really were.
But in the past few years, I've found that assumption to be the biggest mistake I've ever made. There is something that, to me, is far more important than plot or character or anything else, and that is theme.
I first realized my affinity for theme when trying to write my screenplay Prince Charming, which initially occurred to me in early high school when I still thought character was the most important thing. The story's foundation lay in its two main characters, Leo and Jules, who simply popped into my head one day and demanded that I let them out. I knew they were a movie, and I had attempted to write their story once before, but without a fundamental understanding of screenwriting the whole thing fell on its face. But when I found myself in a class, with professional screenwriters, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to re-acquaint myself with the two princes. Surely, this time it would work.
But as the class progressed, and the teachers stressed again and again the importance of having a central question to organize your screenplay around (an "armature statement", as they would say), I quickly realized that Prince Charming had no point. It only had Leo and Jules.
It took me the better part of a week to figure out what Prince Charming was really about, and the answer was disappointing: the importance of being true to yourself. A lovely sentiment, of course, but ultimately the least original idea of all time. Essentially, I was writing every Disney movie ever. I stuck with the story anyway, for its commercial value and because its simplicity helped clarify the teaching points in the class, but in the end it didn't appeal to me any more. It wasn't about something important to me.
And so, when I enrolled in English 485 and was presented with the challenge of writing a novel in its entirety, I started completely from scratch. No old ideas, re-vamped to fit a new situation. No dead characters or faded sets or even any of my tried-and-true authorial banter. No glimmer of those ex-ideas and their grudges against me. Just a blank slate, and a theme.
And, miraculously, the story was born, happy and healthy. The haze developed into setting, characters stretched their arms and yawned as they emerged from nothingness, and an entire plot wove its way among them as if it had always been there, and all with relatively little effort from me. Of course, the Bottom of the Garden isn't in any way finished. Indeed, I only have two chapters so far, but the rest of the writing is coming along nicely and I think I may even beat my self-set deadline for finishing the prose. And it's all because I started from a theme.
And when I look back at the works I've most enjoyed writing (Pravda, Zvezda, and most recently the opening pages of the Frankenstein Theory), they all had established themes from the get-go. And when I look at my favorite stories (Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and Galapagos, Isaac Asimov's the Last Question, even movies like American Beauty and Fight Club), they all have really strong themes. They know exactly what they're about, and they're not shy in announcing it.
As much as I hate to admit it, I'm a theme writer. So much for not being pretentious, hey?
And so, I pose the question to you: Once you have an idea, what do you do with it? Are you the kind of writer who works it into a plot? Are you someone who prefers to attach characters to it and see what comes out? Are you a theme snob, like me? Or do you have an entirely different approach?
Let me know. :)
Snobbishly yours,
M.M. Jordahl
"The Ideas aren't the hard bit. They're a small component of the whole. Creating believable people who do more or less what you tell them to is much harder." -Neil Gaiman
P.S. If you have some time to kill and want to see an amazing lecture on the creative process, check out Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love), "On Nurturing Creativity." Then spend some time poking around the rest of the lectures on TED Talks, because they're all fantastic.
Progress Report:
Bottom of the Garden: 2 chapters, 8,025 words completed
Prince Charming: Nothing done. Don't judge me. XD
Friday, April 15, 2011
the Frankenstein Theory
Look! It's Friday and I'm posting! It's almost like I'm a competent individual! Aren't you proud of me? :)
It has been a very long, writing-intensive week for me. Yesterday I got up at 8 AM and spent almost the entire day writing, until I went to bed at just past midnight. I don't think I've ever done so much writing in one sitting (EDIT: yes I have. Damn you, NaNoWriMo!), but the result was that I finished the second chapter of my novel in only two days, which I have to say I'm pretty impressed with myself about.
But that is not what Friday posts are for. Friday posts are for creative things, and this week I have something that's way, way, way outside my comfort zone. I'm calling it, "the Frankenstein Theory," and it is decidedly steam punk. Who knew I could write steam punk?
It was born last night at my writing club, where Audra issued the following prompt: write about Legacy, within the context of an established genre (science fiction, fantasy, steam punk, AI, etc.). She picked the theme because it's the subject of the next issue of her Speculative Fiction journal, and she wanted more examples.
I initially set out to write a science fiction piece, but my history of physics class decided to stick its nose in and completely take over the story. That said, I'm not exactly an expert in Victorian-era physics (yet :P), or really in any part of European history, so any corrections on factual mistakes would be much appreciated. Also, this is literally the first draft of this thing, exactly as I started it last night with about a page of additional material from this morning. It's definitely an unfinished work in progress, and I haven't decided yet how long it's going to be.
Let me know what y'all think, whether you like it or hate it.
Steamily yours,
M.M. Jordahl
P.S. Some of you may recognize the character's name. I'm a writer. I get to steal people's names. :) And yes, Emil has been informed.
The Frankenstein Theory
Emil Rasmussen hunched in his laboratory, goggles haphazardly clamped over his bloodshot eyes as he peered into the depths of his steam engine. The compression chamber had a leak again, allowing precious caloric to seep into the air where he could never hope to recapture and harness it. This was the third time this week, and he was quickly losing patience with the beastly thing always breaking down and requiring re-welding. He wondered, not for the first time, if he should switch to a Watt engine, but quickly dismissed the idea once more. A low-pressure engine could never create the kind of power he was after.
With a heavy sigh, Emil paced back to his desk and flopped down on his stool, allowing his head to collapse into his hands. He was missing something. He had to be. But what?
As he wracked his brain, his eyes wandered across the desk to his battered, beaten copy of Marie’s novel, and he reached for it almost without thinking. The worn, dusty pages felt soft against his fingertips, and the book fell open to that enigmatic page automatically, as though it were reading his mind. A thunderstorm. A bolt of lightning. Life.
Marie could be excused for the drama of the scene, of course. It was absurd to think that uncontrolled caloric could unleash anything but destruction, but she had no way of knowing that. After all, she was only a woman, and a writer no less.
But still, she had created a tantalizingly vivid image that clung in his mind and plagued his dreams with white-hot flashes of electricity and the spine-scratching grinding of gears and the burnt, sweaty stench of freshly animated flesh and as he lay there, night after night, half-drunk on the power of his own imagination, he slowly realized that he was the only person in the world who could make it a reality.
~~~
He came from a long line of natural philosophers, with his forefathers stretching back to the dawn of Danish physics. Indeed, his great-great grandfather had been a classmate of Newton’s at Cambridge—the only Dane in attendance at the time. When Emil was a boy, he used to love to hear his father’s stories, passed down through generations, about how his own grandfather had helped Newton discover the laws of nature as they strode together across the school’s illustrious campus.
Of course, as he grew up and ventured out into the world himself, Emil quickly came to recognize these stories as pure fancy, and he resented his father for fooling him so as a child. To stunt his intellectual growth with that sort of lie, and about Isaac Newton no less, was unforgivable.
But nevertheless, his father had had the good sense to ensure Emil was thoroughly educated in the principles of engineering, sending him to live with Scottish relatives when he was a teenager so that he could attend Edinburgh university, and for that he would be forever indebted to the man. But it was not his father who had opened his mind to the vast, wonderful possibilities of the world. Indeed, if the old man had spent more time on education and less on fancy, Emil might have awoken to its true nature at a much younger age, and not lagged so far behind the other boys when he finally made it to Cambridge himself. But he did make it, and there he met the man who revealed to him his true purpose in life: Robert Crenshaw.
~~~
Emil was already 22 when he first stepped on English soil with only a suitcase and a small fortune to his name, and one small, very valuable piece of paper containing only a name and an address. Excitement coursed through his entire body, and it was all he could do to constrain himself long enough to locate Trinity college and deposit his luggage before rushing off to find the address in question.
The challenge of navigation proved to be a bit much for him, however, and he quickly became lost in the jumble of lawns and buildings and trees. After a long, embarrassing trial, Emil admitted defeat and was about to return to his dorm in humiliation when another boy stopped impertinently in front of him.
“Are you lost?” the boy asked. Emil shook his head vigorously.
“No,” he said. “I’m going to visit Robert Crenshaw.”
The other boy started for a moment, then smiled knowingly. “Well you’re going the wrong way, mate. Crenshaw lives on the other side of the river.”
Emil glanced behind him, suddenly feeling very foolish. “I knew that,” he lied.
“Course you did,” said the boy, laughing. “Tell you what. I’m headed that way myself. Why don’t I accompany you?”
Emil nodded slowly, recognizing a way out of his predicament.
“It would be awfully lonely to go all that way alone,” he conceded.
“Aw, it’s not that far,” the boy offered a hand. “I’m Levi Beaton.”
“Emil Rasmussen,” they shook. Levi grinned and clapped his other arm over Emil’s shoulder, pulling him along toward the bridge.
“Do you play football, Emil?” he asked. “We ought to get a game going later.”
~~~
Levi was right about the distance to Crenshaw’s house. He lived in the basement of a pub only a couple blocks from the bridge, with a solid wood door that looked as though it had no intention of ever opening again. But Emil had come too far to be daunted by a bit of chestnut, so with a little prompting from Levi he seized the knocker and let it fall.
At first there was no response, so Emil swung the knocker twice more before he heard a disgruntled voice muttering behind the door. The sound of rust scraping on wood and the reluctant groan of hinges announced their mission a success, and the door begrudgingly opened to reveal a small, bespectacled man with a shock of bright red hair perched atop his head and a face that was almost as forbidding as his front door.
“Well?” he demanded, his irritation clear even through his thick Irish accent. “What the hell do you want?”
“Um…” Emil glanced at Levi, who shrugged and pretended not to be listening. He was on his own. “Robert Crenshaw, I presume?”
“Unless you’re lost,” the man shot back. He started to turn as though to shut the door, but Emil shoved his foot in the way, brandishing the slip of paper before him like a white flag of surrender.
“I’m Emil!” he shouted.
Crenshaw blinked at him for a moment, studying his face over the top of his yellowing glasses, then rolled his eyes. “Well that’s all you had to say,” he muttered, and shuffled away into his house, leaving the door open behind him.
Emil glanced back at Levi, who shrugged and pushed past him into the dark doorway, leaving him no choice but to follow.
It has been a very long, writing-intensive week for me. Yesterday I got up at 8 AM and spent almost the entire day writing, until I went to bed at just past midnight. I don't think I've ever done so much writing in one sitting (EDIT: yes I have. Damn you, NaNoWriMo!), but the result was that I finished the second chapter of my novel in only two days, which I have to say I'm pretty impressed with myself about.
But that is not what Friday posts are for. Friday posts are for creative things, and this week I have something that's way, way, way outside my comfort zone. I'm calling it, "the Frankenstein Theory," and it is decidedly steam punk. Who knew I could write steam punk?
It was born last night at my writing club, where Audra issued the following prompt: write about Legacy, within the context of an established genre (science fiction, fantasy, steam punk, AI, etc.). She picked the theme because it's the subject of the next issue of her Speculative Fiction journal, and she wanted more examples.
I initially set out to write a science fiction piece, but my history of physics class decided to stick its nose in and completely take over the story. That said, I'm not exactly an expert in Victorian-era physics (yet :P), or really in any part of European history, so any corrections on factual mistakes would be much appreciated. Also, this is literally the first draft of this thing, exactly as I started it last night with about a page of additional material from this morning. It's definitely an unfinished work in progress, and I haven't decided yet how long it's going to be.
Let me know what y'all think, whether you like it or hate it.
Steamily yours,
M.M. Jordahl
P.S. Some of you may recognize the character's name. I'm a writer. I get to steal people's names. :) And yes, Emil has been informed.
The Frankenstein Theory
Emil Rasmussen hunched in his laboratory, goggles haphazardly clamped over his bloodshot eyes as he peered into the depths of his steam engine. The compression chamber had a leak again, allowing precious caloric to seep into the air where he could never hope to recapture and harness it. This was the third time this week, and he was quickly losing patience with the beastly thing always breaking down and requiring re-welding. He wondered, not for the first time, if he should switch to a Watt engine, but quickly dismissed the idea once more. A low-pressure engine could never create the kind of power he was after.
With a heavy sigh, Emil paced back to his desk and flopped down on his stool, allowing his head to collapse into his hands. He was missing something. He had to be. But what?
As he wracked his brain, his eyes wandered across the desk to his battered, beaten copy of Marie’s novel, and he reached for it almost without thinking. The worn, dusty pages felt soft against his fingertips, and the book fell open to that enigmatic page automatically, as though it were reading his mind. A thunderstorm. A bolt of lightning. Life.
Marie could be excused for the drama of the scene, of course. It was absurd to think that uncontrolled caloric could unleash anything but destruction, but she had no way of knowing that. After all, she was only a woman, and a writer no less.
But still, she had created a tantalizingly vivid image that clung in his mind and plagued his dreams with white-hot flashes of electricity and the spine-scratching grinding of gears and the burnt, sweaty stench of freshly animated flesh and as he lay there, night after night, half-drunk on the power of his own imagination, he slowly realized that he was the only person in the world who could make it a reality.
~~~
He came from a long line of natural philosophers, with his forefathers stretching back to the dawn of Danish physics. Indeed, his great-great grandfather had been a classmate of Newton’s at Cambridge—the only Dane in attendance at the time. When Emil was a boy, he used to love to hear his father’s stories, passed down through generations, about how his own grandfather had helped Newton discover the laws of nature as they strode together across the school’s illustrious campus.
Of course, as he grew up and ventured out into the world himself, Emil quickly came to recognize these stories as pure fancy, and he resented his father for fooling him so as a child. To stunt his intellectual growth with that sort of lie, and about Isaac Newton no less, was unforgivable.
But nevertheless, his father had had the good sense to ensure Emil was thoroughly educated in the principles of engineering, sending him to live with Scottish relatives when he was a teenager so that he could attend Edinburgh university, and for that he would be forever indebted to the man. But it was not his father who had opened his mind to the vast, wonderful possibilities of the world. Indeed, if the old man had spent more time on education and less on fancy, Emil might have awoken to its true nature at a much younger age, and not lagged so far behind the other boys when he finally made it to Cambridge himself. But he did make it, and there he met the man who revealed to him his true purpose in life: Robert Crenshaw.
~~~
Emil was already 22 when he first stepped on English soil with only a suitcase and a small fortune to his name, and one small, very valuable piece of paper containing only a name and an address. Excitement coursed through his entire body, and it was all he could do to constrain himself long enough to locate Trinity college and deposit his luggage before rushing off to find the address in question.
The challenge of navigation proved to be a bit much for him, however, and he quickly became lost in the jumble of lawns and buildings and trees. After a long, embarrassing trial, Emil admitted defeat and was about to return to his dorm in humiliation when another boy stopped impertinently in front of him.
“Are you lost?” the boy asked. Emil shook his head vigorously.
“No,” he said. “I’m going to visit Robert Crenshaw.”
The other boy started for a moment, then smiled knowingly. “Well you’re going the wrong way, mate. Crenshaw lives on the other side of the river.”
Emil glanced behind him, suddenly feeling very foolish. “I knew that,” he lied.
“Course you did,” said the boy, laughing. “Tell you what. I’m headed that way myself. Why don’t I accompany you?”
Emil nodded slowly, recognizing a way out of his predicament.
“It would be awfully lonely to go all that way alone,” he conceded.
“Aw, it’s not that far,” the boy offered a hand. “I’m Levi Beaton.”
“Emil Rasmussen,” they shook. Levi grinned and clapped his other arm over Emil’s shoulder, pulling him along toward the bridge.
“Do you play football, Emil?” he asked. “We ought to get a game going later.”
~~~
Levi was right about the distance to Crenshaw’s house. He lived in the basement of a pub only a couple blocks from the bridge, with a solid wood door that looked as though it had no intention of ever opening again. But Emil had come too far to be daunted by a bit of chestnut, so with a little prompting from Levi he seized the knocker and let it fall.
At first there was no response, so Emil swung the knocker twice more before he heard a disgruntled voice muttering behind the door. The sound of rust scraping on wood and the reluctant groan of hinges announced their mission a success, and the door begrudgingly opened to reveal a small, bespectacled man with a shock of bright red hair perched atop his head and a face that was almost as forbidding as his front door.
“Well?” he demanded, his irritation clear even through his thick Irish accent. “What the hell do you want?”
“Um…” Emil glanced at Levi, who shrugged and pretended not to be listening. He was on his own. “Robert Crenshaw, I presume?”
“Unless you’re lost,” the man shot back. He started to turn as though to shut the door, but Emil shoved his foot in the way, brandishing the slip of paper before him like a white flag of surrender.
“I’m Emil!” he shouted.
Crenshaw blinked at him for a moment, studying his face over the top of his yellowing glasses, then rolled his eyes. “Well that’s all you had to say,” he muttered, and shuffled away into his house, leaving the door open behind him.
Emil glanced back at Levi, who shrugged and pushed past him into the dark doorway, leaving him no choice but to follow.
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