Late Night Encounter - a short story

Jen glanced at her phone as the train pulled into her station. “I have got to stop agreeing to impossible timelines,” she thought to herself as she realised that the time was 10 minutes to midnight. No matter what bonuses the boss promised, it just wasn’t worth the late nights spent in the office. A hastily eaten meal at her desk wasn’t helping her mood.


There was no one in the station when Jen descended from the train. She found the lack of sound to be far more disturbing than the usual bustle of activity. With a light shiver, she rubbed her hands over her arms. The thin business jacket she had on wasn’t enough to keep the chill from her bones. Why did places insist on keeping the AC at arctic temperatures all year round?


Jen heard the clatter as the train doors automatically closed. She could hear the noise of the train pulling away from the station and for a moment, the noise of the wheels scrapping along the track was all she could hear. The rumble of the train grew louder as it picked up speed and then started to fade as it sped away from the station.


“Is there anyplace sadder than a station with no one around?” Jen pondered. She pulled her bag to a more comfortable position as she walked through the deserted station. Heels were seldom the most subtle sounding footwear but sharp click of her heels echoed strangely as she walked. She crossed her arms and hunched over. It seemed even colder than it had been a minute ago. Jen walked faster to warm up, her heels making even more noise against the tile floor.


“Home. If it weren’t so late, I’d take a bath before bed. As it is, I’ll have to be up again in 5 hours to start another day,” thought Jen. “At least home is close. I don’t know how long I’d have to wait for a taxi.” The clatter of her heels seemed to be even noisier than before, it echoed all around her. Jen frowned in exasperation. She wished her job didn’t require heels but her boss had made it clear that they were.


Her stride slowed when the station lights behind her suddenly went off. “Annoying,” she thought. “Hey! Can’t you wait for me to get out, please?” she called. How annoying was it that she said please to an unseen janitor? Worse, there was no acknowledgement of her request but at least the lights stopped going out.


She resumed walking to the exit. The combination of having no lights left on at the platform and the weird echoing of her footsteps was beginning to spook Jen. She could swear that each click was echoed dozens of times. Jen looked from left to right. The shadows of all the equipment seemed normal but there was something that Jen didn’t like about it. “It’s late. There’s no one here. That’s all. There’s nothing to be worried about,” Jen told herself. Her mind darted toward stories of women being abducted from lonely places at night and a shiver went up and down her spine. She looked around again to reassure herself that there was no one else around.


Jen instinctively held her bag tighter. She breathed a small sigh of relief as her hand touched the door handle. “I didn’t think I’d ever reach the exit tonight. It’s never seemed to be quite so far.”


She was surprised to find she was still cold. It had been a balmy evening when she left the city. “I wish I’d worn the heavier jacket. Though my feet would still be frozen,” she muttered to herself. She was so engrossed in that thought that she failed to notice the car behind her until the driver honked the horn when he was just a few meters away.


The young men laughed when Jen noticeably jumped at the sound of the horn. Then the driver put his foot down and the car roared off into the distance.


Jen halted, her heart pounding hard in her chest. “Bastards,” she said. She waited for a moment, wondering what she could do if the car went around the block. She was still two blocks from home, there was no way to get there quickly enough. Jen breathed in deeply, if the car came back, there were a few trees that she could duck behind. Her heart rate slowed and she exhaled.


With a bang, the street light closed to her went out. Her heart rate resumed its frantic pace. “If I click my heels together, will I get home Auntie Em?” With a small sigh, Jen resumed the walk home.


A few steps later, Jen looked around, frowning. It sounded as though she was still in the station, the echoes of her clicking heels resounding through the empty building. But she was outside now, there was no way that sounds should still be echoing.


Jen looked all around. She didn’t see anyone nearby but something was off. It was like somewhere under the trees, something weird was there. But with the dim lights, she couldn’t make anything out. She set off again, this time at the fastest walk that she could maintain in her heels. Her heart was thudding painfully in her chest, her breath was in short puffs.


Jen kept looking behind her, trying to see what was making all the clicking noise. She was rewarded this time with a glimpse of a head. “A dog? That head would be almost even with my knee.” The dog had strange ears though, so long and thin.


She took another look and then Jen began to run instead of walk. That was no dog, dogs had ears and whatever the hell was following her had antennae. Also it had a lot of legs. She didn’t count but what she had seen was definitely more than four legs.


Jen cursed her high heels as she ran. They were awkward as all hell and yet she dared not pause to take them off. Not when that thing was racing along behind her. She stumbled for an instant and sprang up again. She was gasping for breath, her heart pounding in her chest. It seemed loud enough to Jen that she was surprised no one opened a door to find out what was wrong.


Jen would have sighed with relief when she was only two houses away from home, if only she had any breath to spare. As it was, there was a painful stitch in her side making it harder to inhale. Only the thought of the horror behind her kept her running at all. “Just a little further,” Jen encouraged herself. “Keep running just a little further and I’ll be safe at home.”


Jen started digging through her bag as she ran, searching frantically for the keys. Would she have time enough to unlock the door? A quick glance behind showed that the creature was closer than ever. Could she hurt it with the keys, at least a little? Jen shuddered at the thought of being close enough to hit it with keys. All those legs! The body of the beast looked scaly and not soft.


Jen had nearly reached the path leading to her door when another car drove down the street. The creature made a hideous shriek at the sudden light and vanished into the hedge next door. Jen dashed up the stairs and unlocked her door with a feeling of relief. Home at last.

My new endeavour - Inkshares

I've been thinking about how to promote some of my novels that aren't likely to be accepted by a traditional publisher.

Then one of our local writing group started talking about inkshares.com. Think of a kickstarter for novels. If your novel can gain enough interest, Inkshares will act as a traditional publisher.

For my first Inkshares project, I decided to put up the first of my NaNoWriMo novels, currently titled "The Weather Maker".

When I first was thinking about the story I wanted to write, I was thinking along the lines of the classic fairy tale "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" in which the heroine has to travel to the four corners of the globe. By the time that I had written the first part of the story, it had transformed into something different.

Check out "The Weather Maker" on inkshares. Please follow the novel or follow my profile if all my writing interests you.

The problem with a long holiday

Is simply trying to get back into the rhythm of things. We were gone for over a month. Now back for several days and my brain still refuses to concentrate on things properly.

I should be writing.
I should be editing.
I should be sketching.

I should not be spending all my time mucking about with mobile games and reading web stuff.

Sheesh.

Committing to writing a novel - some thoughts

I'm a veteran of NaNoWriMo - I've participated every year since 2011. I have also 'won' the challenge every time.

1. Commit to writing every day. Set a minimum word goal per day and do your best to exceed it. To write 50,000 words in 30 days requires 1,666 words a day.
2. A first draft is really just getting the basic story out of your head. There will be mistakes. Ignore them for now.
3. It's all right to jump in your timeline to scenes that are more complete in your head. Just be sure to mark areas that you want to come back to.
      In Scrivener, I mark sections that I'm skipping or are really rough with a bright pink background.
      I mark sections that are okay but need to be moved at a later date with a blue background.
4. Keep writing every day until you have completed the first draft.
     A well known phenomena is that at some point, you'll be convinced that your novel is the most pointless one to ever exist. KEEP WRITING. Stephen King threw Carrie in the trash at one point - his wife convinced him to keep with it.
5. Set the novel to the side when the first draft is done. You need to let the first frenzy of writing calm down.
6. Now, you have to commit to editing the novel. Remember, it was a first draft. There will be problems; those scenes that you skipped, things that need to move, things that need to change. Word counts are no longer as important - promise yourself to spend at least some amount of time per day editing.
7. You need to remember to edit the entire novel. Don't just polish the first chapter and call the job done. 
8. Once you have done a basic edit, you can let others read your work. Get feedback and do the changes.
9. Once you have done all of this, congratulations - you have achieved novel. :D

Writing is easy

But editing is hard.

Well, that's how it seems at the moment. Editing a novel takes far longer for me than the first draft did. I should really concentrate on making the critical changes and then ship one novel off to a publisher. Just so I don't have to see it.

Been trying to write a short story but it needs polish before publish.

Why I don't use outlines - a reflection

I just noticed the page of "outline" for my novel "The Hunt for the GinGunGyn".

By the time I wrote the novel, the down and out thief had become a street orphan with a stutter.

The female detective character had a far worse time than originally anticipated.

And this

Section 3Here is where the three characters start intersecting

Is the outline version of a major novel section.

Me and trying to outline the action in a novel before writing - it just doesn't work for me.

Restrooms and the law

Apparently in the US, a lot of states have decided that it's necessary to dictate what restroom you should be using according to the genitals you happen to be born with.

Maybe this is because many of those representatives/senators are male and they fear a trans seeing their genitals when they pee.

However, females don't have that problem. Stalls solve it. There is nothing to see, women go into a stall fully dressed. They come out, fully dressed.

In fact, once many years ago, I shared a public toilet on a University campus with a guy. Definitely male, I saw him dash in. However, he was there because he needed a toilet. From the almost immediate noise/smell, he needed that quite quite badly.

As long as everyone in the restroom is in there to take care of business, I see no problem. Legislation isn't needed. Acceptance is. And more unisex restrooms.

The Muse

Some artists rave on about their Muse. You can tell it’s meant to be with a capital M. 

Their Muse helps them soar to new heights. Without their Muse present, they can’t work.

Let me tell you, my Muse is a damned bitch. 

She never shows up when I’m hoping she will. I sit at the keyboard, slowly typing away. The daily word count struggle as ten words become twenty and twenty reach 100.

It’s about the time that the word count loses importance that the bitch Muse shows up. She wants to take credit for all the words. 

But I won’t give her the satisfaction. I worked hard on those first words of the day. They took real effort. 

And no bitch Muse is going to claim credit for them.

The next time she shows up, I am chaining her to the desk.

Still writing

The Fallen is getting closer and closer to needing a new round of comments from other readers.

But I'm not doing the sensible thing of concentrating on finishing one book at a time. My brain is determined to also try to get NaNoWriMo 2011, The Weather Maker, into shape for a first round of readers.

Why, brain, why?

When writing becomes fun

Well, this is in my view. Other writers may disagree.

But for me, it's when the characters come to life and there are suddenly scenes in the novel that you never anticipated. They can spring out of nowhere and they DEMAND to be left in the novel.

My first NaNo waited until 12 chapters in before one character suddenly told another that he loved them. It was supposed to just be a "Magic User Off to Find His Skills" quest type novel. Romance had never crossed my mind. But no, one of them had to fall in love. Over time, the other responds.

I think what I like about this is just that it keeps the characters from feeling flat. If they suddenly show desires or motives of their own, then they are much more realistic.

Who would I expect to disagree? Well, I tend to only have the vaguest plot outline in mind. A lot of my writing is filling in the blanks between distance plot points. I know a lot of writers like to outline everything. They like to have a solid working structure. They probably don't like characters that jump out of line because it's going to ruin their structure.

Huzzah for new projects

So the other day, I finally came up with a new project for my web site.

I decided to create a little insult generator, based of the works of Shakespeare.

First decision, how to do it. There were several possible options including hard coding all the quotes (bad!) and making a database for the quotes. The database idea seemed more complex than necessary.

So, the quotes are in a small xml file. Easy to edit, portable content, no problems there.

The page uses PHP to read in the xml file, pick out a few lines via random numbers and spit them out to the page. So in less than a day, I had the new project coded up and some insults added. The main delay has been reading a couple of plays looking for the insults.

Creativity is hard work

An essay

It’s really something that you want to do for yourself. Or sometimes, it something that you need to do for yourself.

I’ve gotten a bit behind in the sketch-a-day project. The last date is 1 March and that was after a couple of days of catching up with 4 sketches in one day instead of a sketch a day. But it is hard for me to come up with a subject to do each day. I’ll try to do some today though and start catching up.

Writing is also hard work. I’m currently editing The Fallen. I still intend to submit it to a publisher by the end of the year. It needs to be a bit longer - 100,000 words for a first fantasy book seems to be expected.

While working on this, I’ve realised that I can’t worry about if anyone will ever publish it. I can’t worry if anyone else will ever read it (though some people have read first draft versions, unlike ALL the rest of my novels). 

I need to write this novel (and all the others) to the best of my ability. I need to tell this story as best as I can. I need to be able to take pride in my own work, because there’s never any guarantee that others will appreciate it.

Web site drivel

I've put a couple of new stories on my web site.

Little Blue Riding Hood
The Comics and the Theft

I've also noticed that the number of hits related to the hacked version of my site is finally starting to drop away.

Also, if you have a normal web site, beware of installing WordPress. I see regular probes on my site for WordPress directories. The only reason for those hits would be to attempt to hack WordPress once it's found.

On this new service, it's easy to install WordPress. But it wasn't high on my list to add to start with and now...no. Just no.

Decided health check week this week

I've been putting it off for far too long.

Today - it's off to the Breast Cancer screening clinic. A free service for women of a certain age.

Later this week - the doctor's turn. Get anything checked out that she wants to check as well as a couple of things that I want to talk about.

Since I was recently at the dentist - this will mean I've done all the normal checkups and will have nothing to worry about.

Or so I hope. We'll have to see about that.

Web site revamp is complete

I decided that all the game review pages were going to have to be updated. That was 133 game reviews plus about 4 to 6 general game pages. No, I didn't count. The reviews are in an unordered list, I just made it ordered for a couple of minutes so I'd know.

The game reviews - well, some of those games are still around. Maybe via ebay, a friend ditching old games, GOG.com or on a new device. So it's actually possible for people to look for reviews of them.

The current fight is to discourage the spiders from looking for content that was put on my site by the hackers. It took me ages to notice because I hadn't really been paying attention to the site for a couple of years. It wasn't until google webmaster tools sent me a "Your site has serious problems" type email before I found out. The extent to which the site had been compromised was serious.

Fortunately, I had been thinking of moving to a new host and had a site backup from when I was actively maintaining it. The crap was left behind. The good stuff was moved.

So, I'm giving myself a day or two off and then going to try writing new short stories for the site. It's time to be known as a writer of fiction, not a reviewer of games.

Ah - checking the stats

The site build provided by Digital Pacific for the new pibweb.com includes two stat programs.

They give different results. One strictly gives stats by the page. The other can show hits for individual images as well as pages.  So I discovered that my most downloaded item is actually a Sims 2 screenshot. Hmm.

The other thing I am spending far too much time on is the error log. My previous site had been hacked into :( and some of the errors are references to hacker scripts that had been on the site at some time. But there are pages that I've moved and an entire section that I've simply not uploaded to this new site.

The unmoved section was software reviews. Given the software reviews are a decade or more old, those reviews are invalid since you wouldn't want the versions reviewed.

Game reviews are still on the site. The games would not have had newer versions and much patching like the normal software would have. I have no idea how hard they'd be to get on ebay or something. And some have since been ported to new systems - like Monkey Island is on IoS now. Still the same game!

On acting and drawing

We went to the Doctor Who festival held in Sydney last year. It was a lot of fun and I'd certainly do it again if it comes back.

One of the sessions we attended had audience Q&A time. An audience member asked Peter Capaldi if he thought acting was an innate talent or something that you could learn.

He compared acting to drawing. A lot of people think they can't draw so they don't try.

But if you want to learn it, you can do so by drawing every day. You may not end up as a great artist but you will be able to draw. His conclusion, acting is also something that you can do by practicing.

I don't know about acting, but the drawing thing is dead on. I find that many people insist they can't draw and so they don't draw. I actually didn't think I could draw either. But after doing a round of 30 days of sketching, I went from pathetic to all right. More practice and I've gotten better. Much better in fact.

Right now, I'm filling in a sketch a day journal. Each day is a small sketch. I spend maybe 5-10 minutes on them. By the end of a year, I expect that I'll be that much better. And even more so when I take my time drawing on a larger surface than those small sketches.

Finally - web site revamp is live

It took a bit longer than I hoped it might but the new version of pibweb.com is live.

There is a lot of old content that doesn't have the new look, but it's also not linked to the current site. I'll keep an eye on usage for a bit, if it seems to attract too much attention, it has to either get an update or be deleted.

It is nice to finally have a clean modern looking site again. Also, the links are all in date since all pages with old links are part of the 'ignore it unless too popular' category.

I've been on the web a long time

I've just been trying to reconstruct my web site history a little. According to one version of the home page - it was started in late 1994.  That's old. Not quite the absolute start of the web but the web was still new.

The first versions were personal pages attached to the university web site I worked for. The wayback machine doesn't actually find any pages prior to 2001 but I'd actually long since moved the site to the second home it would have.

The second home was on a system called ultranet. The earliest pages that the wayback machine finds for those is 1999.

Eventually, my husband bought a domain name for me. Thus was born pibweb.com. The earliest references the wayback machine can find for the domain is 2001 - which is probably close to correct. That makes my domain 15 this year.

Just imagine, my sites pre-date google. In fact, somewhere in this house is a check from google for participating in their initial campaign to raise awareness of Google.  I can't remember why it wasn't put in the bank at the time but it's now historical and would not be valid to cash.

Web Site revamp

Well, the new look version of my ancient domain is complete.

The old version looks like

Which is very dated. I really hadn't felt like dealing with it since I was also dealing with a corporate web site. I no longer have other people's sites to maintain so updating my own seems like a great idea.

This is the new look. It's using Bootstrap - which has easy to use code for many features. Bootstrap is responsive by design - the pages will work well on phones to desktops.

I am thinking that I should add a background image just for a bit of visual interest but I don't need to worry about it yet.  It's one of those things that can be done later.

I'm ditching most of the old content. It's going to be on the new server (mostly) but not referenced by my pages or updated to the new look. That way links to those pages don't break but I don't have to update reference pages that might have nearly all broken links.

Perhaps this will inspire change

I'm in the process of moving my web site to a new host with lots of new modern facilities.

I hope that this will inspire me to think about what I want to do with the site and basically redo the entire thing. It's all horribly out of date.

I can see perhaps a section on writing and play areas for html 5/css3.

NaNoWriMo 2015

After much internal debating, I have decided to participate again this year.

To kick off the thought process, I have also decided to steal a plot line. As such, I am officially stealing the basic plot of "The Tempest". I doubt Shakespeare will complain about this.

Because it's a play, there will be much to do to make a novel of it.

I have been rereading the play online. I also am using an unusual reference dictionary - Samuel Johnson's dictionary to be precise. While I have an excellent vocabulary - there are words that Shakespeare uses that I simply don't know. Yarely was one of them. There are others that have changed in meaning over time, this dictionary is more likely to have a definition that makes sense. In fact, this dictionary has many examples of usage and a good proportion of those examples are from Shakespeare.

So, I have a plotline. I need new character names and a bit of world building. But the stage is set, all I need are the players.

Time - A short story

“Once upon a time.” Doesn’t that sound like a typical and safe story start?

Of course, if you think that, then you don’t understand time. Time hates to be called into account. He hates to be mentioned in any form.

He also has a long memory and a taste for revenge. Beware of beginning any tale as “Once upon a time”.

You don’t believe me? You think time is merely a concept? A construction? Have you not heard the tale of Manuel the Bard? Nor that of Cassandra the Storyteller?

Sit and listen as I tell you more…

—

Manuel the Bard was the most amazing performer. He could sing and play on his guitar all the best known songs without flaw and wrote his own music on a regular basis.

He decided to compose a new piece celebrating the life and love of the Lady Feinal. Her beauty was still much discussed, even though she and her husband Prince Aekyn had lived and died more than 200 years before.

Unfortunately for Manuel, he began his ballad with “Once upon a time”.

Time took offence and then upon a revenge.

Manuel grew older and older. His sight was weak, his hearing gone, his fingers too curled to play an instrument. Still he lived. All his friends died and still he lived. In fact, he still lives though he wishes he did not.

—

Then there was Cassandra the Storyteller. She always held her audiences spellbound with her tales. She knew the old folk tales, tales of the gods, and tales of the travellers that had returned from seeing the world. All this and she had yet to reach her twentieth year.

Everyone in her town loved Cassandra. She was welcome in every home, and would be offered food and a bed during her visits. In exchange, she would entertain the household for the night.

There was a fateful evening where Cassandra started her story with “Once upon a time…”

Time struck back.

For Cassandra, the days suddenly began to fly by. By the end of a year, she had aged ten. Five years for the rest of the town was fifty years for Cassandra. During the sixth year after uttering the phrase, she had passed of old age. She looked to be eighty even though her real age was 26.

Never begin a story with “Once upon a time…” Time does not like that.

The Student and the Magician

(This story was based on this prompt from Seventh Sanctum. "This is a tale of personal transformation. The story is about a smooth magician. It takes place in a keep in a university town. The story climaxes with someone getting lost. A magical accident plays an important role.")

“Yo, Bailey, you going to the show tonight?”

“What show? I’ve been so deep in my coursework that if it’s not in one of my books, I haven’t noticed it.”

“Campus art gallery has a magician doing a show tonight. It’s 20 bucks to get in, part to pay for his appearance and part to pay for some renovations,” Ollie replied. “His show is supposed to be pretty good.” Ollie slapped at the book on the table. “And you really need a break, mate.”

“I must have been out of the dorms at least once today,” Bailey huffed.

“I might believe you’ve been out once this week. But not today or yesterday.” Ollie tapped Bailey on the head. “Your brain is going to be mush. Nothing but mush. Tell you what, I’ll shout the first drinks.”

“It’s in the gallery, Ollie. There may not be drinks,” Bailey protested. He tried to concentrate on the book in front of him.

“Of course there will be drinks. Where do you think the REAL money for the renovations is coming from? Overpriced beer, but you can get slapped with penalties if they catch you sneaking some in.” Ollie reached over and closed the book. “Come on, it will be fun.”

“Are you going to take no for an answer?”

Ollie gave an exaggerated sigh. “I’d rather you said yes, but I’m not going to drag you there. So, I guess I’ll have to find some hottie to buy a drink for.”

Bailey stood up and stretched. “Well, if you are going to twist my arm,” he said as he held out one arm. Ollie lightly grabbed the wrist and gave it a tiny twitch. “OUCH! All right, all right, I’m going,” Bailey laughed.

“The show starts in 2 hours. Time for you to change your clothes and we can grab a burger before heading for the gallery.”

“Change my clothes?”

“I swear you have been wearing the same shirt all week. Go on, get changed and we can take off.”

---

They arrived at the campus gallery half an hour before the show was due to start. As Ollie predicted, there were drinks available. The choices were overpriced beer or overpriced wine by the glass.

“I love the high class,” said Bailey as he grabbed the plastic cup.

“Don’t bitch about it. After all, this one is on me. When you buy a round, then you can complain about the plastic.” Ollie took a gulp of beer. “Besides, can you blame them? I’m sure they will have plenty to clean up as it is. They don’t need broken glass everywhere.”

“Dude, check out this sculpture. I swear, we should be art students. My baby sister could do better than this.” Bailey was staring at the twisted form on the pedestal. It was composed of ‘found’ objects, namely trash collected from around campus.

“You know why we aren’t art students. The odds of being successful at it are too low. I know I don’t want to spend four years just to flip burgers because I can’t find a job.”

“Not every business student finds a job,” protested Bailey.

Ollie shook his head. “Our odds are still way better. Especially if we do well at one of the special subjects in the last year.”

They wandered around, looking at the other art while waiting for the show to start. A couple of beers later and the art was looking much more interesting. Much of it was for sale, but neither of them had the inclination or cash to think about buying anything.

---

The magician was Malthos the magnificent. The show itself was pretty decent given that it was a small stage in an art gallery. Bailey was certain Malthos could do more, if he had a more elaborate place to set up. As it was, the magician had made a lot of things appear and disappear. His pretty assistant had been through the crowd a few times, much to the delight of the guys.

“Now for my next trick, I would like a volunteer from the audience.”

“Here’s where they grab a plant, wonder who it will be?” said Ollie in an undertone to Bailey.

Malthos scanned the audience a few times. Several people raised their hands but his eyes barely paused as he looked around. He pointed directly at Bailey. “You, sir. Would you kindly approach the stage?”

Bailey looked around but everyone was already applauding and the assistant had a firm grasp on his arm. “Right this way, if you don’t mind.”

“But I do mind. Take someone else.”

His protests fell on deaf ears. He gave up and let himself be led up on the stage.

“Now, kind sir, your name please.”

“Bailey.”

“And have we met before, Bailey?”

Bailey shook his head. “We definitely have not.”

“Now, all I need you to do is step into the magic cabinet, right over here. Will you do that for me, Bailey? Don’t worry about anything, just step inside.”

Bailey nodded and stepped into the box. He heard Malthos talking to the audience as he shut the door. He began to worry about his next exams. They were soon and Bailey wasn’t as prepared as he wanted to be. “There are times when I wish I were somewhere that exams didn’t matter. Grades didn’t matter. For that matter, somewhere that universities don’t even exist.”

Time passed and Bailey grew tired of standing. “Ready or not, here I come,” he said as he pushed open the door.

He was in a lush green forest. He looked back but the cabinet was gone. “Where am I? How do I get home?”

The Lights - a short story

Henry came home after work. He went into the kitchen to get the daily newspaper and then walked over to the living room light switch. When he flicked the switch, there was a brief flash and a pop as the light burnt out.


"Martha, could you get me a light bulb. This one in the living room just went out."


"I'm sorry, dear, but there aren't any left in the house. I had four extras but this is the fifth light bulb to go out this week. I should have bought some more at the store but I thought that after four bulbs in one week, we wouldn't need any more for a while."


Henry grumbled as he looked around for another place to read the paper. He finally settled in the dining room. Just as he settled down to read, there was another pop. One of the lights in the chandelier had died. Fortunately for Henry's temper, there was still enough light to read by.


The next day at work, Henry found the light in his office had gone out. He called the maintenance department, who promised to come right over and replace the bulb. It took two hours for maintenence to come and the office was too dark during that time for Henry to read any of the reports on his desk. Finally, there was a knock on his door, and a voice said, "Maintenance."


"What took you so long? I called your office three times, trying to find out where you were, and all I was told was that you were on your way." "Well sir, we had go out and buy lights, and we've spent the rest of the morning trying to catch up on replacing them. I don't know why but we never just have one light go out. It's always a lot of lights, and we never seem to keep enough extra bulbs in stock."


Henry thought about the coincidence of lights burning out, but soon he forgot about it. At lunchtime, down in the cafeteria, he run into Thomas Chambers, one of the company's best research and development men. He decided to pull Thomas's leg a little.


"Hey, Tom, I have a little problem for you to work on. Why is it that light bulbs always burn out in clusters?"


Tom chuckled, "Is this one of this new cosmic problems caused by the invasion of earth? Henry, you're going to have to do better then that if you want me to believe you. Next thing, you'll be telling me about a guy in a red suit, and a bunny that delivers eggs." They talked about other things while they finished their lunch and both of them forgot about light bulbs.


Tom's lab was working on an automatically fastening seatbelt. The work had just progressed to the final testing stage when the lab was hit by a plague of lights burning out during critical moments. First, there was the light over his desk, then the one one over the scaled down model of their new belt, then the light right over the full scale seat belt fastener just as they were trying to test it.


"Henry may have been just joking around last week but he may just have a point." Tom did a few quick calculations on his computer. “Definitely, the odds against a coincidence are almost astronomical."


Tom set up an experiment in his lab which had a series of ten lights automatically turned on and off, four times every hour. There were five cameras set up to film the lights. The cameras took a picture once every minute.


After a week, Tom developed the film. At first, the only thing he noticed about the lights was when one of them would burn out, another would go out within two more on/off cycles. Then he noticed an odd blur on one picture just before a light burned out. That blurry spot was far too small to be human and there were no animals allowed in the lab.


Tom replaced one of the cameras with a high speed movie film. This was set up to take pictures just before the light was due to come on. On this film, Tom got an image of a small creature that appeared just before the light burnt out. He spent the afternoon making a still picture from the film. He rang Henry on the office telephone. "Met me at the pub on the corner, after work. I've got something to show you."


Tom had been served a drink by the time Henry arrived at the bar. "Drink up," said Tom, "I think you'll need one before I show you what I brought." Henry ordered his drink and waited until he was half through before he spoke.


"Well, what's this about? I can't spend long here, Martha hates it when I'm late."


"Remember the problem about lights you talked about a couple of weeks ago?"


"Are you trying to get even for that simple joke?" "No, I found the answer. There is a reason why lights always burn out in groups." He handed Henry the picture he had developed that afternoon.


Henry stared at the picture. There was a small furry beast, standing on the ceiling of a room, doing something to a light. It had large hands and eyes. "Good fake. How did you do it, put a light on the floor done up like the ceiling?"


"It's real, I swear. Hard to believe but true."


"What is it? I've never seen anything like that before."


"You remember in world war II when a plane went wrong, they would blame gremlins? As far as I can tell, that's what this is. My theory is that they consume power, and after the war, they decided to go after the most common appliance they could find."


The men stared glumly at the picture. "What hurts is that I don't ever dare tell anyone about this. I'd never be believed again. But I've put traps around all the lights in the lab. Maybe, someday...when I've caught a specimen to show people."


"Yeh, but if they were easy to catch, wouldn't someone have done it by now."

Back to gym

As I do every once in a while, I decided it was time to get a gym membership. While walking dogs is good exercise for the legs, I don't get much exercise beyond that.

Women, in general, can use strength training to help avoid 'bones of glass'. Being fragile and easily broken.

So, I joined Friday last week. I have been 4 times since joining. Not enough to make a noticeable change yet but first is just developing the habit.

Same gym group that I always join. Local people, several gyms in town, not too expensive.

Well, not going to put THAT on my bucket list - the Archibald Prize

So, drawing is a fun hobby.

And I've been particularly prone to drawing people (or Sims) as practice

Now yesterday, a random thought crossed my brain about the Archibald Prize - a prize in Australia awarded for a portrait.

Just for the hell of it, I went to look it up. Australian resident - check. Needs to be a painting - okay, have to put that entry for a year until I can paint with physical materials and not digital. There is a fee, but it's pretty tiny and I could do that.

Subject needs to be an Australian, well known in their field. Fine, I can handle that.

Subject needs to be aware of the artist and have at least one sitting. ANNDDDDD there's the huge NOPE. There's just no way I'm going to ask anyone well known in their field to sit for a portrait painting. Just no.

Funny, it's not the idea that I'd lose. In fact, I expect to lose. But the idea of asking anyone to sit in real time for a portrait? Never.

Trying to find the inspiration to finish

NaNo 2014 - I won. Huzzah and all that.
But, the book isn't finished. It's probably about 3/4 done, but not finished.

Since around the start of the holidays, I started seriously slacking off in writing. I was hoping that I just needed a break and I'd be ready to finish the thing in the new year.

But so far, no. It's not writer's block. It's just no desire to finish the stupid thing.

Drawing on the right side of the brain

I inherited a copy of this book some time ago now.

Now that NaNoWriMo is done for 2014, I can afford to spend some time doing things in addition to writing.

I have decided to try this book. I did once have some informal art instruction back in about 1999 (give or take a few years there) which possibly was based on this book.

So, the first exercise is to be completed before you actually begin learning the techniques. There are 4 but I’ve only done 3 of the four. One was to draw a person (no pictures), one was to draw a person doing something (no photographs to be used), one was to draw your own hand (you could look at your hand) and one was to draw a chair (from looking at a chair)

So, this is the start of the journey.

Wish me luck.

Learning the best writing sprint length

I am an excellent procrastinator - truly first class. Add this to the fact that there is always a fascinating array of things that suck up your time on the internet and it makes trying to complete the NaNoWriMo challenge hard.

So I've been trying out a few things this year.
A friend was doing rewards after getting so many words out. I so totally cheated this system that it was worthless.

Next I tried the timed writing sprints. My first few were 15 minutes and I found that I could write a lot in 15 minutes if I knew that I had a break coming after.

The next day I tried 25 minutes. This was a little too long. I felt like my brain was going to try to leap out of my skull and flee.

So now I'm on 20. This is the right length for my writing. I'm just starting to flag a little but not badly.

NaNoWriMo is still tracking on schedule. If I push out a few extra 20 minutes sprints, I should finish a day or two ahead of the due date - 30 November.