Walking Along My Path

I'm ashamed of my home state right now

2009-12-03T14:11:08Z

Originally published at Durosia.com. You can comment here or there.

On Wednesday, the NY State Senate took up the issue of gay marriage and threw it unceremoniously under the wheels of a bus made from short-sighted fear and prejudice.

This is the same things we've seen happen again and again over the years. Law makers cite their own uncomfortableness with the idea of same-sex unions or the religious-fueled dislike from their constituents. Actual fairness isn't taken into account. Freedom is eschewed in exchange for centuries old dogma.

We all know that sex in general is a touchy subject in the U.S. It's the one place where our Puritanical roots show clearly. Sex among those of the same gender, well, that's still a bit much for John Q. Public to accept, it seems. And our leaders aren't doing a whole lot to change that.

There is no legal reason why men and women should not be able to marry men or women. The loudest arguments I've heard hinge on the idea that a same sex marriage is some affront to God (usually the Judeo-Christian one).

That, my friends, is the domain of The Church. If The Church (or any other religious organization) doesn't want to sanctify same sex unions, then they are well within their rights to not do so. But City Hall... that's secular territory and God (any god) has no place within those walls--especially within the public law books.

I could go on. Some time, I'm sure I will (the first hurdle for gay marriage here in DC was just jumped successfully). But for now, I leave you with the wise words of one of the NY Senators, Diane Savino, who made me proud:

I do understand and respect the religious argument against gay marriage. I understand why it's such a touchy subject. But there is (and should be) a line between secular law and faith. At least until everyone under that secular law shares the same faith. (And, really, that's just not going to happen any time soon.)

New Scrubs? Not Quite.

2009-12-02T10:31:39Z

Originally published at Toob Talk. You can comment here or there.

Just finished watching the first two episodes of the new season of Scrubs on ABC.

I think that’ll be the last time I’ll be watching it for a while.

I’ve been a bit of a Scrubs fan since it first hit the airwaves. It was different, creative, and populated with solid actors playing horrendously quirky characters. More importantly, it was written and acted with heart.

It showed up right when we all needed some good human comedy, premiering on 2 October, 2001. All along the way, even when I wasn’t watching regularly, I could always count on the show for something worthwhile. More than once, I’ve found myself tearing up a little as an episode progressed. Always, though, the show would leave me feeling a little better and with a smile on my face.

Not so with the new season.

With such a solid finale at the end of last season, the convoluted explanation for how and why everyone is back pushed the limits, even the limits of such a wild show as Scrubs. The old hospital is gone, demolished. It’s been rebuilt attached to a college. So now everyone who’s back (which is a little over half the main and extended cast, it seems) is teaching and running rounds at the new hospital.

Oh, and there’s a new batch of med students. Half of whom seem to be clones of the original characters being groomed to replace them when they finally actually, really, leave the series (in another few episodes).

Kerry Bishé plays Lucy, who’s incessant internal monologuing would be great if it hadn’t already been JD’s shtick. Obviously, her character is going to be the main focus of the “new” show. Dave Franco’s pretty boy, self-important, womanizer (who also happens to be the son of the main money behind the college/hospital) Cole could be a gold-mine of crude humor. But he’s just a more cultured version of The Todd (who also shows up). And Michael Mosley’s Drew is the “bad boy with a heart of gold” who’s also serving as the love interest for returning character Dr. Denise Mahoney.

There is a lot of potential here. But the way things have been handled in these first two episodes obscures a lot of it. If anything, this season deserves to be treated as it’s own series. Until that happens–and that’s going to require JD, Dr. Cox, Turk, and Dr. Kelso to vanish–it’s not going to be anything other than a lackluster “extra” season to an otherwise great show.

Maybe when it’s given a chance to be it’s own show, I’ll tune back in. Until then, maybe I’ll watch if there’s nothing else on. (Of course, I do have about 40 hours of stuff on my DVR that I can watch instead…)

NBC-Comcast Merger: Bad for Us?

2009-12-01T12:31:24Z

Originally published at Toob Talk. You can comment here or there.

It looks like Comcast is well on its way to becoming part-owner of NBC-Universal.

According to a post at the New York Time DealBook blog:

General Electric has reached a tentative agreement to buy Vivendi’s 20 percent stake in NBC Universal for about $5.8 billion, helping clear the path to a sale of the television and movie company to Comcast, people briefed on the matter told DealBook.

This is one of those slightly worrisome business dealings that only gets worse the more one thinks about it.

While NBC may be faltering a bit in the regular TV network ratings, it still holds a lot of broadcast clout. Add in the stable of entertainment properties that it’s Universal branch brought in and the online suite of destinations (like Hulu) and it’s a major player across the new media board.

Comcast, of course, the largest of the big cable companies that now bring television, Internet, and voip phone service to our doorsteps.

The combined NBC-Comcast behemoth would be, without question, one of the most powerful media conglomerates around. Check out this bit of analysis from Media Daily News:

“You become a cable network,” he added. “You become the most powerful network. You would eclipse USA Network.” Malone was one of the main architects of the U.S. cable TV industry in the 1980s and 1990s — especially with his dominant cable system operation, Tele-Communications Inc.

That’s from someone who definitely knows what he’s talking about.

In the paragraph before the one quoted, Malone mentions that the best way to get to that point is for NBC to divest itself of it’s local affiliates. Not something easy to do, but not an impossibility.

Mergers like this do more to hurt the diversity of news, entertainment, and information in general than anything else around. With fewer providers, we’re left with fewer choices. And here we even have the potential for a tremendous loss of jobs (if local affiliates are, indeed, axed in the name of more power and profits).

Will the FCC step in and say something about this? That’s kind of up in the air. Over the last decade, the FCC has been going back and forth on its media ownership and saturation rules. Those are coming up for discussion again. According to the LA Times Blog Company Town:

That the FCC is looking at reevaluating how it measures media could be a good or bad thing for the industry depending on what direction the Obama administration wants to take. The consensus is that his FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, will look more harshly on media concentration than the Bush and Clinton administrations did.

Free Press has set up a campaign to stop the merger. Josh Silver, the executive director of Free Press, said in a statement:

“Approval of such a merger would trigger a new wave of mega-mergers, as other giants like News Corp. and Disney bulk up to exert more control over new media. We don’t have to speculate about what this would mean for consumers. Decades of disastrous media consolidation have already given us higher prices, fewer independent and local voices, and the same cookie-cutter content wherever we go.”

On this, I tend to agree with him.

We’ve seen very clearly what big business can do when it gets “too big to fail”. For years we’ve let our media companies–old and new–glom together into larger and larger homogeneous hunks, all the while sliding into more and more partisan places. Polarization is not diversity. Homogeneity is not choice. And lack of competition does not breed quality. (Though these days I often wonder what does breed quality in the media.)

I’m going to wait for a few more details to come out over the next few weeks before I really start to worry, but I will be watching. If you care about your media–be it online, in print, or over the airwaves–I’d recommend you keep an eye out, too.

If this goes through and bad things happen, we have only ourselves to blame.

December Looms

2009-12-01T04:53:50Z

Originally published at Durosia.com. You can comment here or there.

Very shortly, December will be here.

Looking back on the year past is the inevitable consequence of this.

Thing is, since I tend to loop my year with the end of October, I've already been doing the annual introspection bit for a month or so now.

Can't say I'm all that impressed with most of what I've done this year. Mostly because there really isn't a lot.

Sure, I showed up at a lot of things (that is, after all, my running joke... which I'm sure has worn quite thin with those who hear it all the time), but actually doing something I can put my name on or otherwise lay claim to? Nope. Not really much at all.

There's a handful of blog posts. But those haven't happened as regularly or with as much quality as I would have liked. Working to shore that up for the end of the calendar year, but it may be too little, too late, to really make a difference in how I feel about it all.

The numerous projects I started over the past 12 months or so? Every last one of them still sits nowhere near ready for public consumption, if they've even gotten to the point where there's something to look at. Again, attempting to make a mad-dash to make good by the end of the calendar on a couple of projects that I've been doing for other people.

There's really not much more than that from my (unwritten) "List of Things to Do Before 2010." Which makes it even a little more of a downer that I didn't manage to pull off more little things along the way.

Mostly, my time's been taken up with day-job work spilling over into my off-time (if not actually, then mentally, as I really try to find my place in the scheme of things Content-related) and health-related things (having that sarcoidosis pop up in February really put a huge kink in a lot of things, as have the mostly useless doctor's appointments and random bits of exhaustion that have come out of nowhere every now and then).

I'm in no less debt than I was a year ago, thanks to the credit cards upping their rates across the board and the newly acquired medical-related debt. This makes any number of other things difficult.

All in all, though, I'm still quite happy with life. I never did want to be famous or all that well known, so having a solid group of people who actually give a damn around me is more than enough for that interaction--a number bolstered by anyone who accidentally stumbles across these words on the big canvas of the Web.

Expect more ramblings like this over the next month. It really should all culminate in a few Big Announcements that I've been holding off on while I've attempted (and failed) to get things in place.

Yeah, time to kick off a new decade with some good stuff. Just a few more things to get done before then...

Forty-five Second Metro Crush

2009-11-30T12:12:12Z

Originally published at How to Crush Without Being Crushed. You can comment here or there.

She walked down the aisle, passing me, to get off the train at Metro Center, her long brownish skirt flowing around her every step. For a moment, our eyes met,then we were both distracted by the not-quite-dapper young men horsing around by launching themselves out the open door and onto the platform.

She stepped out quickly after them.

And then, before the door chimes could sound, she stepped back in and scurried, never looking up, to the seat across the aisle from me.

Shuffling through her large, faded, denim handbag, she extracted a plastic covered library book. Blazoned across the top, white letters on a field of orange, it said “ASIMOV”.

She held the book barely open, intently scanning the words on the steeply angled pages, her plain brown hair swinging with the motion of the train. I resisted the urge to ask which of Asimov’s books it was.

For a bookmark, she used a post card flier from some campus action network. That told me adds were high she was most likely considerably younger than me. While her style and the way she carried herself hinted at a promise of some common ground, it was not enough to move me to strike up a conversation.
I noticed that the book was “Foundation”.

As the train stopped at Gallery Place, she quickly packed the book back into her bag and got up. When she paused for a moment, not wanting to repeat her last mistake, I called out “Fantastic book!” and gave the ever-so-corny “thumbs up” sign.

She quickly looked at me as she left the train. I smiled. She looked confused… and then was gone, the door closing behind her.

Thanksgiving in Review

2009-11-29T00:17:29Z

Originally published at Durosia.com. You can comment here or there.

PB260017, originally uploaded by KierDuros.

Yet another fantastic Thanksgiving thanks to Vail and Jesse.

Autumn and I rolled in a little after 2, after missing the exit we were looking for due to being caught up in good and interesting conversation.

Many of the usual suspects were in attendance, which lead to more great conversation, interrupted briefly by fantastic food. Was particularly nice to see Nicole rolling back through town... hadn't seen her in a couple of years. Always good to be able to catch up a little with people in person.

Festivities stretched well into the night, accompanied by games and tasty desserts. And breakfast the next morning... and more games...

Totally fantastic. As usual.

The Prisoner: Be Confusing You.

2009-11-23T12:22:47Z

Originally published at Toob Talk. You can comment here or there.

I finally got around to watching the remaining four hours of AMC’s new version of The Prisoner.

After watching the first two hours when they ran last week, I can’t say I was terribly impressed. It had potential, sure, but it was missing something. And it seemed a bit more surreal at times than the original (which, if you remember the original, is saying an awful lot). But, I figured, maybe the two thirds would clear some of that up.

No such luck.

First, let me give credit where credit is due. This show is darn pretty. The sets and scenery have just the right feeling of “off” to them to echo that sense of unease one should have while watching the goings on in The Village. Scenes flow pretty well from one to the other and the music choices are interesting, atmospheric, and just as disconcerting at times as the visuals. James Caviezel as Number Six does an adequate job (with what he was given to work with) and Ian McKellan as Number Two catches some fantastic nuances of that character as it’s written in this iteration.

But none of that good stuff can balance out the lack of spunk and downright disjointed writing that fills the space between good bits.

Without question, there should be some of that off-balance and lost feeling in this show. The main character doesn’t know what’s going on, where he is, why he’s there–he doesn’t even have a clear memory of who he is. It shouldn’t all make sense. There should, however, be some baseline of “normal” to judge things by. For a while, it seems like there is, but as the hours drag on (pacing is another issue all together), things become more and more surreal and disjointed instead of more coherent.

Having watched all six hours, I’m pretty sure I know what the point was and what the filmmakers were trying to do with their splicing together of two (or three?) realities and time lines. It was done sloppily. The cues separating one from the other just fell apart, leaving the narrative dangling in an ambiguous space.

Which would be fine if this were some avant garde art film with a two hour or so run-time. In a six hour television series, you’re not going to make any friends with your viewers if you do this–unless you do it very, very well. (HBO’s Carnivale managed to do something similar to what The Prisoner has attempted, but managed to keep it organized and tight enough that it didn’t get in the way of the story.)

The problem of lack of solid ground to stand on was exacerbated by total lack of story flow from one hour to the next. More than once, I was left wondering if I’d missed something important–if there was some reason Number Six or Number Two or someone else was suddenly behaving very differently than he had been. Some of it is explained, but too much of it just “is”.

Worst of all, though, this Number Six spends most of his time brooding, moping, or swooning. Lacking is the sharp and impassioned verbal banter between Six and Two that was a high point of a number of episodes of the original show. The rivalry–and kinship–between the two key characters is much more subtle and drawn out. Again, something that would be OK if there was more solid ground to set it against.

Over all, I’m less than impressed with what AMC did to this franchise. It managed to suck out most of the life and all of the mystery while adding nothing but some pretty scenery and confusion.

It comes out on DVD in March. Without some very compelling special features, there’s no way I’ll be buying it. I’ll stick to the full box set of the original series I picked up years ago (which, oddly, I still haven’t gotten around to watching all of).

Transparency and Conspiracy

2009-11-18T14:15:35Z

Originally published at Durosia.com. You can comment here or there.

Right now, there's a lot of buzz going around about a whole lot of issues with the data being presented over at Recovery.gov, the site that's in place to let We The People know where all that stimulus money is going.

ABC News reported last week that there were some serious accounting errors being found in the job creation numbers. That was followed over the weekend by some adjustments to the numbers. And that's lead to cries of "foul!" from both sides of the floor.

Needless to say, the anti-Obama faction is pointing to this and calling conspiracy. The pro-Obama faction is... well... not doing all that much (comparatively speaking). Democrats and Republicans alike are calling for a closer look at the numbers.

That closer has already turned up some problematic things. Most notably is that a lot of the fictional jobs reported came from fictional congressional districts. Things like this only fuel the conspiracy end of things and get the media machine oozing with vitriolic joy as there's some sort of paranoia to draw people into their stories.

Here's the thing: This is exactly how the process is supposed to

I'll bet you dollars to donuts that some of the errors being found are truly accidents--data entry and transfer issues--that, if all of this wasn't being dumped to the public, wouldn't be caught for years. And, if it was, it would be corrected quietly and no one would ever notice how the number of jobs created/saved drops.

Then there's the "business as usual" habit of places getting money from the government (or anyone else) trying to make it look like they performed miracles with that money. It's a sub-set of the "If we don't spend it all, we won't get the same budget next year" mentality that I think causes half of the waste in this country. No matter who's in charge.

Conspiracy rears its head when interested people don't have access to all the facts. It is fueled when more questions are raised than answered.

Transparency attempts to cut through the fog and let everyone see all the way down to the bones of the matter.

Problem here is, the bones are buried deep under lots of thick skin, purposely obfuscated process, and just plain old red tape.

What we're seeing right now is just the tip of the iceberg. We're right to be a little worried about it, but we shouldn't be calling for blood and we most definitely shouldn't be pre-supposing it's a case of the people in charge trying to put one over on us.

At least not yet.

This is just the usual stuff that's been happening behind closed doors for decades (that's right, not just in the previous administration). It's because those doors were closed that it's gotten as bad as it has.

At its best, the press took the initiative to pry those doors open. That doesn't happen half as much as it should any more. Now the 24-hour news cycle is too concerned with keeping people glued to their coverage of scandal, panic, and general fluff that the real investigative reporting that makes The Fourth Estate worthwhile and keeps the rest of the power structure in check (and the public informed) has become a comparative rarity.

The good news is, a lot of organizations have sprung up to keep a watchful eye on the government. (Check out a listing of some over at the Sunshine Week site and the work that OpenTheGovernment.org is doing.) Sites like Recovery.gov make it easier for all of us to do so. And we should. It's our responsibility to watch out for ourselves these days.

There's a big mess to clean up and some of it has been around so long it's become part of the system. It's only with determination and clear heads that we'll be able to clean it up and reinstate some sensibility in our government.

Into the Future! (I'm on Twitter Now)

2009-11-13T14:24:41Z

Originally published at Durosia.com. You can comment here or there.

OK... now that I have this shiny Droid phone (which has a nice keyboard on it, both physically and on-screen, when needed), I no longer have an excuse for avoiding text-message-based things. Gods know I was sending enough texts using the old phone, though doing so grudgingly.

Now you can find me on that Twitter thing: http://twitter.com/kierduros

I've started to go through and add people, but feel free to beat me to the punch. :)

Can't promise that I'll tweet much. It's not like a do a whole lot of fascinating things. But it is another way of keeping in touch, and that's not a bad thing at all.

Chapter 5: Playing the cards

2009-11-13T04:56:01Z

Originally published at A Tarot Experiment. You can comment here or there.

Every step of the way, each new card spread is pointing directions for the story and revealing the plot. Little by little I get more ideas for who these characters are and what they've done before, are doing now, and will be doing as the plot progresses.

As usual, though, sometimes it's tricky to tell exactly what character is supposed to appear in a scene.

At first glance, this chapter's spread appears to be one of those times.

Seven of Swords (inverted)
The Hanged Man
Strength
The Sun (Inverted)
Wheel of Fortune (inverted)
Knight of Swords
King of Shields (inverted)
The Universe
King of Swords
Six of Shields (inverted)

No matter what, there's some interesting progressions--especially since I'm using the Celtic Cross and Staff spread (which, as time goes on, I'm thinking may not be the best spread to use for this sort of exercise... at least not in the general chapter plotting area).

Coming straight from the root of the situation to the crown of it, we have Strength, The Hanged Man, and an inverted Wheel of Fortune. Circling around from the same starting point, we have Strength, the Sun inverted, and an inverted Wheel of Fortune. Either way, we've got quite the change in circumstances--and all from things beyond the character's control. Big deal things. Perhaps subtle, but noticeable in the long run.

Even better, because I'm using the Legend Arthurian Tarot, Strength is subtitled Percivale's Vision and The Wheel of Fortune is Arthur's Dream. The Seven of Swords right in the middle? That's the Sword in the Stone.

This shuld be interesting.

Day 4, only a week late...

2009-11-12T07:13:51Z

Originally published at A Tarot Experiment. You can comment here or there.

OK, finally got to just over my minimum for Chapter 4. That only leaves me about, oh, 10,000 words behind (give or take a thousand). Still better than previous years, though. I'm up to just over 7,000--which puts me not too far away from the most I think I ever managed to crank out during a NaNoWriMo.

So, not bad at all, actually, when put in context. :)

Counting these blog entries, I'm over 10K words.

Anyway...

In this past word dump, I seem to have introduced one of my "go to" background groups: a still kind of mysterious terrorist organization. They first appeared in my writing years ago in a story set in the far-flung future where they were greatly opposed to humans leaving the planet (or something along those lines... never did finish that story).

Based on some other bits that have come to light as the words pour from my fingers, it seems they may know about some things that most people in the world do not... and things that our main characters are going to be discovering (or, in at least two cases, re-discovering).

Only two chapters left in this section of the book. Which should work out pretty well as I've got one more main character to introduce and then I have to bring them all together so the real story can get started.

So far we've got a bunch of characters and at least as many sub-plots and back story bits that can all come together in parts two and (even more so) three. Since I'm writing this all without an actual plot in hand, it's an exciting ride for me.

It's also making me think of how to better utilize the technology at hand to make keeping track of everything easier. In my planning for a Drupal module (or suite of modules) for writers, I think I've already reached the limits of my own capability--there's definitely some custom coding that will need to be done. I most certainly won't end up with a finished product by the end of this month, but that's just as well as I should be focusing on the story and not the support structure. Right?

The other major distraction has been the new, shiny, Droid phone. I'm still optimizing it and figuring out what new ways of doing things work best. So far, it's mainly let me open up some more time at home as I can catch up on RSS feeds and e-mail on the commute, instead of waiting until I'm on my couch. The possibilities are endless, though, and I can't wait to figure out some more tricks.

New and shiny

2009-11-11T01:52:01Z

My Droid showed up Monday afternoon.

Of course I couldn't play with it right then, work and all, y'know.

I did go through the basic setup and get a little playing done before I left. Then I hit Best Buy to scope out some headset and earphone options. Picked up a set that seemed to be good (wired, not Bluetooth). Going to have to return those... don't like they way the sit in my ears at all.

Got home, realized I'd left the Droid charger plugged in next to my desk at the office. That put a bit of a damper on futher playing with the new phone. Did get some apps loaded, still getting the feel for it all.

This post? Written on the new phone.

Not sure how long it's going to take me to get used to the tiny keyboard. Definitely better than a phone keypad, though. ;)

Halfway on Day 4

2009-11-09T08:19:21Z

Originally published at A Tarot Experiment. You can comment here or there.

OK, not even 800 words for the weekend. This is bad. But I acomplished some other things, so that is good.

I did let myself be distracted by an interesting idea. See, this year I'm writing this more or less post by post in a quick Drupal site I set up. (I set up Drupal sites all the damn time for work, so it's no problem to throw together something quick for personal use.) At least, the original idea was for it to be a quick and simple site. Just a blog and the story.

That idea lasted until I got sick of flipping back through the blog or story posts to find character, business and other names and facts. So I've come up with a set of content types that will interrelate and keep track of a number of things.

First and foremost, I'm going to have a full listing of every character that gets introduced and reference the story posts they appear in. Same for businesses or organizations.

Then there will be a running list of annotated reference links that will generate both from blog posts and in-story citations (a real benefit of writing in a "live" environment is the ability to link what may be esoteric information--like acronyms or historical references--to deeper information on other parts of the Web, giving the reader a chance to gain a deeper understanding of the writing).

I started to build all that out on Saturday. When I should have been writing (but after I caught up a little on some other projects I have promised to other people).

So, yeah, still way behind, but attempting to make the whole process more efficient. Talking with a writer buddy of mine over the weekened, he expressed some interest in the system. So there's a good chance that once I have the functions ironed out, I may see about packaging it up and making it available to anyone who wants it. Open source is a wonderful thing, and I'm more than happy to share.

Anyway, in the hunk of story that I did write this weekend, we see a distinct change in the character of Solomon Mercado. He's not a desk jockey like I originally thought he was going to be. Nope. He's some sort of test pilot for BI. And either current or ex military, at that. Who knew? Amazing what comes up.

Also, the story is now most cerainly sci-fi. Any time battle mechs make an appearance, that pretty much cements at least part of the genre.

I'll be adding more to this chapter Monday. At best it's only half as long as it should be, so it'll at least meet the minimum word count for single day. Now I just have to squeeze an extra, what, 6K or so words into the next week... assuming I don't fall further behind?

Yeah... there's a reason I renamed the subdomain I'm using from "nanowrimo.durosia.com" to "fiction.durosia.com"... I have a feeling this project won't be sensibly completed by the end of the month. Which, really, is just fine.

Day Four: Behind but Trying!

2009-11-06T08:05:33Z

Originally published at A Tarot Experiment. You can comment here or there.

Yeah, didn't get anything new cranked out today. Was more than a little preoccupied with other things... like queezing enough space into the budget for a spiffy new Droid phone. That should show up on Monday. I'll be able to write during my commute again! And read.

This is good.

The next spread for the coming chapter has been drawn. Behold!

King of Shields
Ace of Swords
Two of Cups
The Sun
Five of Shields
Four of Swords
Six of Cups
Death
Six of Spears (inverted)
Eight of Swords

Again, I'm not sure right off the top what characters are involved in this chapter, but I'm suspecting (once I further inspect the cards) that we may finally see Solomon Mercado (our Knight of Shields) or Kristy Roth (our Queen of Swords) make an appearance... there certainly is the space for them here.

Always a Surprise

2009-11-05T08:23:20Z

Originally published at A Tarot Experiment. You can comment here or there.

That was kind of unexpected.

Looks like we have another two characters that just showed up, neither of which I was expecting.

Oliver Coffee is a former employee of Diversified Research Engineering, the company that just merged with British Implementations.

Adolfo Demetrius is a gregarious stranger that came knocking on his door with a strange story and promise of destiny.

We also now know there's some sort of movement afoot based around a sacred text of some sort. Could this be what the Seven of Cups keeps hinting at in the story spreads? It just may be.

I've also decided that I really need to make some changes to a section of Chapter 2... the whole justification for why BI starts a new division is a bit too doom and gloomy to be sellable, even in the reality of this story. They're more likely attempting to record and preserve endangered cultures than to be trying to save the world by total information management or something... going to have to figure out how best to do that.

Anyway, that's another 1900 words or so. Not quite caught up, but closer.

Can't wait to see what happens next.

Also, note the change in the URL of the site: it's now fiction.durosia.com. I figured that opens up a few more possibilities than just NaNoWriMo.

Day Three: And now I'm officially behind

2009-11-04T07:26:38Z

Originally published at A Tarot Experiment. You can comment here or there.

It's amazing the difference a day makes.

Went out after work with some coworkers, had a great time. Got home a little before midnight and sat down to spread the cards and write a bit... and promptly crashed out on the couch.

I may be able to crank out 3K words on Wednesday, but I'm thinking the catchup may have to wait for the weekend.

Either way, here's the spread for the next chapter:

Two of Shields (inverted)
The Tower
Ace of Swords (inverted)
King of Swords
Eight of Cups
The Horned One (inverted)
The Moon (inverted)
Seven of Cups
Knight of Spears (inverted)
The Hierophant (inverted)

Well... it looks like someone is having a particularly rough time in this chapter. Figuring out who is one of the real challenges of doing "readings" this way.

In a typical reading, it's very clear who the subject of the reading is. Using the spread the way I am for this work of fiction, I have to kind of work backwards to figure out which character the cards are talking about. At least at this early point, where I'm still introducing the characters.

Definitely a challenge.

But fun. And a good mental and creative workout.

Now if I just didn't have to sleep or go to work, I could really make this happen tonight. ;)

Still on track

2009-11-03T08:16:44Z

Originally published at A Tarot Experiment. You can comment here or there.

Well, there's another 1700+ words down.

Next trick is to get around to doing that before it gets near 3 a.m. (Of course, it doesn't help that I totally crashed out when I sat down to start writing at 10 p.m., after being barely awake enough to make dinner when I got home... )

This time around, we've got one new character (who was mentioned in passing in the original setup), a new company mentioned and the "I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with it" insertion of an MMORPG... it just seemed like the kind of thing Trent would be working on.

Noreen (who's name was generated in the standard method) fits a bit with both the queen's that showed up in the spread for this chapter. We'll be getting to know her better as time goes on, I think. The company she works for, Firedrake Consulting, was inspired by the last card in the layout.

Everything else... well... we'll see how that all plays out.

I was "accused" of being organized in all this by a friend. The truth is, I'm totally flying by the seat of my pants. Aside from the simple arithmetic used to divide everything up into 30 parts (one per day) and those parts into sensible chunks, I'm just going by what the cards lay out.

This is, by far, the least structured and planned NaNoWriMo I've done yet.

And I think I already topped my word count of the last two years...

Day Two

2009-11-03T00:24:59Z

Originally published at A Tarot Experiment. You can comment here or there.

Looking at my schedule, I already see problems with getting one of these "chapters" done per day. I foresee weekend where I'm going to have to crank out three or four in order to make up for losing evenings to meetings, time with friends or, y'know, sleep.

Looking back on Day One's copy, I can't say I'm exceptionally happy with it. But, since it's all the way over there in another post, I can resist the urge to go and re-write when I go to work on tonight's installment. I may have finally found a way to not constantly re-edit things as I write or add to them...

Now, on to the next spread:

The Lovers
Queen of Spears
Queen of Cups
Five of Swords (inverted)
Wheel of Fortune
The Emperor (inverted)
Two of Swords
Two of Spears
The Fool
The Star

Another big bunch of Major Arcana cards... kind of appropriate for the beginning of a story, I guess--numerous external forces conspiring to make the lives of the characters more interesting than "normal" people and such.

Onward toward more typing...

The first bit is always the hardest... until the next bit

2009-11-02T08:40:09Z

Originally published at A Tarot Experiment. You can comment here or there.

I just finished banging out over 1700 words for the first chapter of my NaNoWriMo story. I want to write more. There are so many more nuances hinted at by the spread it's based on that I'd need at least another thousand to do it justice. But they'd also have to be shoe horned into the scene something fierce. Go read it, if you have some time, and let me know what you think.

For the names of the companies (British Implimentations and Diversified Research Engineering), I once again turned to Seventh Sanctum's generators. I'll be using them a lot.

There was also some interesting research on badgers and how they live that I didn't have a chance to work into the main story yet, but will certainly come into play. (That was, of course, inspired by the particularities of the Tarot deck I'm using and the fact that the Page of Shields has a badger on it.)

The latin motto of BI, "Knowledge, Compassion and Determination", was generated using The Latin Motto Generator. And the word count was made by a quick copy and paste into The Word Count Tool (I figure as long as I'm doing this online, I may as well do everything online, right?)

Now, I need to sleep, since I can't just take the whole month off to write, I've still got to go to work and pay the bills.

And so it begins...

2009-11-01T09:21:12Z

Originally published at A Tarot Experiment. You can comment here or there.

Welcome to NaNoWriMo 2009!

Jumping right in to the experiment using Tarot as the main guide to, well, everything in the story.

We start out with the main characters, drawn from just the court cards of the Minor Arcana:

Queen of Swords
King of Spears (Wands)
Knight of Shields (Pentacles)
Page of Cups

Well, that's an interesting spread. One from each of the suits.

Because it fits my normal literary tastes, I'm going to use our Knight as the main character. Turning to the wonderful name generator over at Seventh Sanctum, we find that he is called Solomon Mercado. I think I can work with that.

I'm going to go and do the same for everyone else. I'm also going to do a single card draw for each from the rest of the deck that will come into play in a second. Note that I've also decided to set the story in a more contemporary time than the Arthurian cards project, so there's going to be some translation and twisting going on.

Solomon Mercado (Knight of Shields) - Ten of Cups
Titus Trent Nelson (Page of Cups) - Five of Cups (inverted)
Mitchel Len Bender (King of Spears) - Seven of Spears
Kristy Roth (Queen of Swords) - Seven of Cups (inverted)

That's a lot of cups showing up. Probably means there's going to be a lot of drama going on here... which is appropriate, seeing as how it's a novel and all. Probably some mystical stuff, too.

Now taking those cards into account. These are where our four characters start from--a certain point in their lives, if you will.

Solomon has just reached a wonderful plateau in his life. His career is going well: he just got a promotion and is lauded by his superiors and loved by those who work with and below him. He's about to ask his girlfriend to marry him and probably as an offer in on a house. He is living the dream. (I'm sure that will all be ruined by whatever problems prompt him to go on his quest.)

Titus, a new hire at Solomon's company (maybe?), just got back in touch with an old girlfriend from college. They've been talking for a bit online. He's kind of excited about this as he sees her as "the one who got away."

Mitchel is the head of the company. He's just lead a successful merger with what had been one of their lead competitors. Needless to say, there are still grumblings about how it's "Just not right" that the merger has happened, but Mitch has been able to make things go pretty smoothly, all things considered. There are rumors, though, that there's something else he's looking for... something that may or may not actually exist.

Kristy was a vice president before her company was takeno over by Mitchel's, now she's "just" the head of a division. She's been taking the apparent demotion is stride, though, as she knows why Mitch fought so hard for the merger. She knows what he's looking for and is determined to convince him that she's more than capable of helping him find it.

OK... no actual villains yet. I'm sure they'll come up eventually.

But, we've got a starting point, some names and faces and what seems to be a vaguely coherent plot shaping up.

Not bad for some randomly drawn cards, eh?

Now the actual overall arch, from a simple five card spread (after shuffling everything back together, of course):

Eight of Shields (inverted)
King of Cups
Nine of Shields (inverted)
Two of Cups
Page of Cups

These will be the five sections of the story (which will have 30 chapters, so each section will have 6 chapters to it).

In the beginning, we learn of what this mysterious "quest object" may be. There is an underlying feeling of unease in some areas of the company, but rumors of something big on the horizon. Somewhere out there (probably a subsidiary or remaining rival) produces something that fuels the conspiracy theories. Has some bit of code, trade secret of design been leaked from the main offices or is something else going on?

Part Two looks like it will introduce someone new--someone who holds a key piece of information about what Mitch and Kristy are searching for.

Part Three: Everything goes to hell. Infighting ensues, betrayal and false promises are exposed, people turn their backs on one another. Shallow interests trump wisdom. (Seriously, this is the interpretation of the card, more or less straight... eerie, isn't it?)

Part Four: A time of reunion and strengthening bonds. Some romance, but, ultimately, a tragedey.

Part Five: Looks like Titus will be coming into his own in the home stretch. Interesting... can't wait to see how we get there.

And now, we'll hit the first actual chapter layout, using the Celtic Cross and Staff spread (note that the info at the link there is a little different from the method I use when I do readings for people, but for the purpose of the fiction experiment, it should serve pretty darn well.) We reshuffle the deck and get:

Page of Shields
Seven of Cups
Eight of Swords (inverted)
Queen of Cups (inverted)
The Magician
Two of Cups (inverted)
Three of Cups (inverted)
Knight of Spears
Three of Shields
The Fool (inverted)

At a quick first glance, it looks like we've got a pretty solid thread for a first chapter here. A few more potential characters, definitely some foreshadowing opportunities, and, smack dab in the middle (card 2), an indication of who the prime mover of the situation is--the card tied to Kristy and Mitch... that "mythical" something else they're looking for.

Now I just need to eke out some time to turn that spread into a narrative.

Halloween: Win!

2009-11-01T07:48:43Z

After going to bed way later than expected between Friday and Saturday, I got up a bit later than planned and didn't get to the ZipCar until around 2:30 in the afternoon.

Then I decided to fight the traffic up and down Rockville Pike. Why? Because I realized very late Thursday (like, technically, Friday, long after I should have been asleep) that all the makeup I thought I had... I'd thrown out a couple of years ago because it was either dried up or gooey in bad ways. That, of course, would make putting together the planned costume for this year problematic.

And so, I finally got around to hitting the places I'd normally hit, just about three weeks later than I should have. Most places were picked clean. (Though I did find a nice leather motorcycle jacket at Ranger Surplus in Rockville that I may have to go back and get... I need one that actually fits right.) But, over the course of a few hours, I did manage to get everything I thought I'd need.

"Everything I thought I'd need" turned out to be too much, as usual. Good news is, if I ever got some of the projects I have in mind off the ground, some of it will definitely come in handy.

Due to traffic and weather, I got home a bit later than I expected... and apparently (yet again) missed the large group of trick-or-treaters at my apartment. I'll be eating candy for a few weeks. Aw, shucks. :)

I forgot how long it took some liquid latex to dry enough so I could put makeup on it. That slowed down the costume putting together. I ended up rushing on the last bits of application... finally got out of the apartment just after 8:30-ish (about half an hour after I wanted to be at the party).

As always, Jeff's party was fun. He puts out a good spread and lots of fun people show up. My costume went over well, there will be pictures sometime soon. I got sucked in and totally lost track of time... so I didn't make it to Spellbound as I had planned.

But what I did do was have good conversations with interesting people who I really do want to spend more time with.

Overall, Halloween was full of win.

Got home earlier than planned... removed the makeup and then wondered what I should do with my "extra" time. Then I remembered that after Halloween comes NaNoWriMo. So, off I go to start the story... Feel Free to follow it here. :)

And the verdict is...

2009-10-31T09:47:00Z

...quite the successful little night of metaphysical meanderings.

This will have to happen again, with a little more planning. For something that was just kind of let to happen, though, I think it went pretty well. We all learned something or other, had some good times and tasty treats, and I did two Tarot readings.

I've also now been up for over 22 hours on less than 4 hours of sleep (and some odd minutes of not-quite-a-nap zoned out-ness during the day at work).

My ZipCar reservation starts at noon... and I realized today that I still lack a couple of important (and hopefully easily procurable) things for my costume.

Should probably sleep now...

Halloween Approaches!

2009-10-30T17:49:42Z

Originally published at Durosia.com. You can comment here or there.

PA250054-processed, originally uploaded by KierDuros.

Churches can look really creepy with the right lighting and background. :)

That's the National Cathedral, shot at about 5 a.m. with my little point and shoot camera... with a little help from Photoshop to bring things up to about the level I was seeing them.

I like it.

Having a small get together at my place tonight (Friday), not exactly Halloween-related, but definitely seasonal in spookyness. Anyone who's interested should let me know. No official invites have gone out as it's kind of last minute and ad hoc. No agenda other than it being metaphysical flavored. All are welcome.

Saturday night is going to be a howling good time. Planning on bouncing to two different parties--one is the annual shindig my buddy Jeff throws, the other is the Halloween party at the club I normally go to. We'll see if I actually make it to both... I'm notoriously bad at party hopping.

Rolling right along...

2009-10-30T03:39:48Z

Got just about all the books back on the shelves (though sooo far from the order I originally put them up... I swear, once upon a time there was a more organized arrangement!) and boxes put away.

I'm more or less on track for the metaphysical get together on Friday (which you are, of course, invited to).

Work has, thankfully, been a little less insane lately. We'll see how long that lasts.

Now that the apartment is back in some form of shape, I should be able to get my non-work schedule back on track... and get some of the lingering freelance/personal projects tied up. Just as importantly (if not more so, because it's been one of the main stumbling points), I'll be able to get my head back in the right place to regain some seriously lost forward momentum.

I am distinctly behind on my holiday posting of things.

So, in honor of the new icon I stumbled across today, here's what my first exposure to Tim Burton was. Needless to say, I was hooked from the start. :)

And Furthermore...

2009-10-29T05:09:04Z

Looking back to this post about NaNoWriMo 2009 and my plans to have a Tarot-fueled story, I decided to get a little more creative and make it into a full-on project.

So now there's a website (nothing fancy, just an sub-site at my Durosia.com Drupal site and a theme downloaded from the bunches available for free).

If all goes as planned, there'll be two types of writing going on there: the actual story and the documentation of the readings that feed into the story. Feel free to play along at home, writing your own interpretations of the spreads. Heck, if people really want to do it, I'll set you up with an account on the site and all the interpretations can live together.

Also, still planning on having that get together on Friday, mentioned here.