Why, brain... why?

Yes, it's technically Boxing Day (1:32am local time), and y'know what I've been up to for the past several hours?

Google searches.

Yup. This 'thing' which doesn't even have a title.

What am I researching online?

Well, the Rig Veda for one. Yes, I am reading the Rig Veda, and I may read some of the other sacred Hindu texts as well... I've also got a window open with a spoken sanskrit dictionary, something called 'pranava meditation teachings', and 52 different Wiki tabs/pages open.

A few of those Wiki pages/tabs include: Sarama, Helskor, Hermes, Cerberus, Socotra, and every fairytale I can remember/think of involving magic shoes... from Cinderella, Puss in Boots, The Red Shoes, Twelve Dancing Princesses, The Wizard of Oz, The Magic Shoes, even the glowing-hot iron shoes the evil queen from Snow White is making my list... and those are only the fast/basic ones I can recall and can easily search for by name. I know there are a pile of non-western tales, I just haven't gotten that far yet. I've also found a few academic papers, like this one, which should be an interesting read.

If anyone has any other stories in solving magic shoes, I would really appreciate it if you could email me or mention them in the comments. My brain is a little full of... hymns right now... it's more than a little fun re-reading all the ones about Vac that I haven't read since university.

I've also been browsing everything from this to this to this... (that last link I'm kindof in love with) and beyond...


I'm not sure how other writers research, and I think it probably differs, not only for the writer, but for the type of story being written... as an example, I think research for historical fiction would be way harder than an ordinary contemporary story... wow, okay, I got lost on my way to the point...

...so, backtracking swiftly from that tangent, I'm not sure how other writers research, but I do a lot of reading without really taking down many notes. I try to immerse myself in as wide a range of information as possible, and somewhere in the midst of drowning in that flood of data, things just start suddenly clicking together.

That's how I wrote every paper in university... and (apparently) how I research story ideas.

And that's the mode I'm in right now. Skim reading like crazy.

I admit it feels more than a little blasphemous... mixing so much religion/mythology/etc into a giant vat and reimagining it into something new... but I suppose, after reading and learning about so many belief systems over many years, that is how they generally spread... by amalgamating, devouring, or destroying other belief systems. And don't even get me started on hermeneutical horizons... philosophy at 1:30am is probably only surpassed in 'bad ideas' by calling someone on the phone that you're mad at and trying to have a conversation.

Okay, I think I have actually tired out my brain enough to fall asleep. It's been a tough few weeks.

G'night, all.

Descriptions of colour, and a runaway tangent about eggs

Okay, now this is hilarious...

Now I'm curious to go back through old stories/writing and see if I've used any weird food references...

Since I'm not big on physically describing characters, the only story I can think of with (potentially) problematic descriptions is SCARLIGHT, but since I have decided on a pallet of colours for him to see the world in, if I have fallen prey to any food-comparisons, at least finding a substitute will be easy :)

Personally (in that linked article) I was hoping for a description using uncooked egg whites as a comparison... which, I feel, are one of the more disgusting things a person could eat. Actually, eggs in general I find a little creepy.

By the way, did you know that blood can be used as a substitute for eggs? Seriously... this IS going to end up in a story someday... I've been toying with AotD as an appropriate medium...

And yes my head is full of weird facts. This makes me useless at 'proper' small talk, yet it's incredibly useful at driving away people I don't want to have a conversation with.

Really? You want to tell me about the latest celebrity-fad-high-protein-diet you're on? Well, let me tell you an interesting fact about eggs and blood...

Works every time ;)

Okay, I love this guy...

READ, and I dare you not to laugh.

Characteristics of insanity

I know I wrote a post a while ago that touched on this, but it's happening again.

There is seriously a screw loose in my head (well, probably more than one...) that pops up in times of extreme busyness/stress.

When things are piled up so high it's hard to plan out a day, much less a week, my brain decides it's a great time to push everything aside and think about writing.

Is this a strange form of procrastination?

Is it a way to force a mental break?

Or is my brain trying to kill me in a slightly different method?


There are few reasons why I think it might be attempted-suicide-by-brain.

1) It's not just one story. It's all of them, actually. 6 major/full length stories (well, 9 actually, since the 'sort-of-trunked' one was a trilogy). If it was just a single one, I'd be more included to think, "wow, after a good rest/break from that story, I have gained fresh perspective!"

2) It's not just one change, it's many. Thoughts on TRoRS would require me to delete about 1/4-1/3 of the story and go from there. Thoughts on AotD, L&R, and SO would require a complete refocus of each story... too scared to calculate how much re-writing would be required (easily 1/2 of each story)... Thoughts on the trilogy would require rewriting from scratch in a different POV. Thankfully, at only 20-ish-thousand words, the changes to SL would be less... but it's also the one I have the least thoughts on, which means it's the story least worth delving into.

3) I'm still banned from typing. Even just typing out this post has my neck aching, a sharp repetitive stabbing in my rotary cuff, and the fingers of my right hand are starting to hit the wrong keys, or not move at all (due to the shrink-wrapped-fascia tissue in my forearm restricting the tendons that work the fingers).


Yet my brain is full of *ideas* that it wants to get out.


May is going to be an insane month, with the convention and all, so I'm hoping I can mentally sandbag/barricade this tsunami until June 1st.

...we'll see how it goes...

You'd swear it was a prank, or a bad tv episode...

The Vancouver condo is 99% clean! YEAH!

...but I found something... odd...

Tucked at the edge of the kitchen counter was a mysterious note... and I don't recognize the phone number, or the handwriting:

Doesn't that seem like something that would happen in a bad tv episode? Or something someone would do as a prank?

Honestly, I have no idea what to think... especially since I have no clue how this note got into my condo, other than (I guess) the movers and a few other tradespeople have been in and out, plus the concierge has my spare key and I asked him to water my plants in the summer... and where I found the note, it could have been there for a while since it was behind my watering can.

Seriously... what the heck?!?!

Should I be completely creeped out, or flattered?

How weird is this?