It Came From Outer Space…

I’m looking at certain stories and realizing there are some very gross and sensitive issues that might have to be addressed, STDs, incontinence, hemorrhoid relief, picking at scabs, the effects of meth abuse, vomiting; these are all things which gross me out to a certain degree, but at the same time I realize that you do a disservice to your potential readers if you shy away from covering certain things. While the detail doesn’t have to be excruciatingly graphic unless you’re really trying to hammer home a point, merely speaking of the effects of certain abuses on a person’s body is enough some times to say what you’re trying to say.

Certain characters while being heroes, in a sense, have tragic flaws, and those need to be emphasized otherwise the hero becomes too unbelievable. Just because you have an angelic soul attached to you doesn’t mean you get off free to abuse your body with no consequences. Meth rips apart a person’s body, aging them, changing their brain chemistry and while angelic nature might delay those affects, once the angel is gone the person would be screwed.

These are all things to take into account.

Feeling better and being able to write once again has me thinking about getting, or rather finishing my online degree. In 2005 I had to stop working on my masters degree online because there was just too much going on: work, wedding, moving twice in a few months. Even though I wasn’t enjoying that program much at all I still wonder about completing, or rather doing something else.

I know I would not want to go back to FSU, however I only have two years to make up my mind before I have to re-take the GRE which is several hundred dollars. I’d rather not do that again, considering I had to pay for it twice in the first place.

Someone pointed me in the direction of Western Governors University, which was founded in 1997 by 19 U.S. governors that impresses me right there. Their main focus was to expand access to education for working adults. The other thing that impresses me is that WGU is a non-profit university and they’re entirely online which would mean unlike Kore, my room mate, I wouldn’t have to take a portion on a campus somewhere, which, with a three year old at home, a shoddy car and horrendous health issues would be a plus.

The other thing that impresses me is that their tuition is set at a flat rate per term, so you get out what you make of it given you pay for the six months of schooling rather than per credit, so you pay $3000 for two or six courses, however much you can do which means that as well as being able to get scholarships if you work quickly, as I often do, and get ahead you can save even more money than just for the fact that the tuition is so low. I know at FSU I paid about $5000 for two courses in one semester, and that was five years ago. I dread to think what it would be now.

This is one of those that I’m considering a lot more seriously. I just have to see how I would manage it. My husband and I have had several disagreements about me going back to school. I know part of it is that he’s afraid of me biting off more than I can chew. I really need to get to a better point in my health before I add another thing on to my stress level which I understand.

What? I hear you say; but yes. As some of you may know I’m a tarot reader by trade and we’re currently offering a Valentine’s Special over at my tarot site, which yes, used to be housed here.

Given things are a little slow with that right now I decided to do a relationship reading for Sam & Brad the two central characters of the “Too Deep” story which you may have heard me rambling about here and there. You can see the reading here: Demo: Relationship spread. Though I’m going to quote a lot of the written explanation here and explain and analyze it.

The first portion here speaks of healing. This is facing up to facts. In this case that there are wounds from the past that have not been allowed to heal, as well as habits that should have been overcome. You are not weak. You have the strength to face these things. It can also show recovering from illness or accident. Whether it is any or all of these, Judgment shows that you have the strength to face that the past is the past and can be laid to rest. There is a transformation going on a positive one.
The Hermit shows a time of introspection is needed to get this done, a time away from everything and almost everyone. There may be one or two significant people called on to help with this, those who can give you the space you need and the gentle encouragement to work through all these things, but it’s best to be away from the hustle and bustle of normal life and all the craziness that it has entailed in the past, so that you can properly ruminate and work through all the niggling and painful things that you need to.

That portion relates to Sam, and is a bit of ‘duh’ as that’s basically what the story is about, him recuperating, and facing up to the things which happened to him so that not only can he process things and finally heal, but also stick to his health-needed plan to quit drinking, but prove his fidelity to Brad by letting him in.

There are a few things causing conflict here, I believe the Queen actually represents your partner, given the King is already drawn as his signifier. I say this because the court cards are more likely to be people and because of the Ten modifying. This person is successful in business endeavors, and has the eye of an artist. They give their all for jobs and people that they believe in, and strive to ensure everyone and everything they put their faith into will succeed. They’re very practical and down to earth, and they wish to help but in this instance cannot, because of the Ten. The Ten singularly being at the peak of housing and work which can be both good and bad, because you’ve reached the top and get your rewards but you have all the responsibility that brings and have to carry it.
So in this case it is forcing oneself to do all these things and carry all these things by yourself when there is a willing hand to take some of the burden. I can do this. I should be able to do this. I don’t need help. I’ve done this by myself for so long I’m used to it. They’re unwilling or unable to recognize that they have help, willing help, and they no longer have to carry all these things alone. The problem then comes that they run out of energy and get crushed by everything and then are unable to do anything at all. Give over some of your burdens. Trust in those around you to be able to not only understand, but accept.

This points to things that are in the ‘background’ of the story and come to light slowly throughout the course of it. Brad and Sam met a few years after the war. Sam was doing a ton of different things trying to keep busy and essentially running himself into an early grave. Part of Brad’s major issue with this is the fact that not only would Sam never talk about all the things going on, giving him the brush off and just trying to get through everything, but that he was essentially killing himself on several levels, ignoring his health in particular not only refusing treatment for illnesses, but smoking and drinking.

Now, the Priest, in the Manga Tarot is the equivalent of the High Priestess in other decks. They hold all these secrets within, and carries the ability to reveal these things so that decisions can be made. You are going to learn a lot of things, some of them very odd and potentially disturbing, but they will benefit all around even though they may stir up the dead.

That’s one of those ‘duh’ factors again. The point of the story is the revelation of all these ’secret’ things. Sam’s childhood, his acts during the war as essentially a terrorist or resistance fighter (depending on which side you’re on).

Here we have a struggle. You have been battling a lot lately. There have been a lot of challenging things which have gone on, and you feel as though you’re at war, but you’re not entirely sure what you’re at war with. You’ve been shaken up, and are off-kilter, you have no idea how to fix these things, but you want to, and you should be able to. The cards are in your favor on this, so do not give up. This is also a card of struggling, you’ve been juggling a few things lately, money has been involved to a certain degree. This is more balancing of things, you’ve been having to balance perhaps two jobs, or career and home life and it’s been getting to you, but relief is at hand and things will pay off soon, and there will be less stress.

Yay, Brad, you win! The blockhead is coming to his senses and going to talk to you, and actually start taking care of himself. Brad has been balancing also, he’s finishing up school, doing an internship and worrying about Sam. He spent a few months completely at a loss because Sam up and left, figuring that he would die and not wanting to put Brad through that, and then when one of Sam’s “co-workers” get in touch, for a while he’s acting essentially as Sam’s caretaker on top of everything else.

Unlike the Queen from Sam’s reading this Princess is a situation and not a person, they are an indicator of good fortune, and change for the better, a turn around in ill-health that will bring great relief. They are paired with the XXI World which means this is a very Good Thing to have happen, and also that there is a completion of a long journey and great rewards coming for hanging in and soldiering through. The World being the last card of the Major Arcana is a very positive card. It is the card of perfection and happiness. It’s a successful conclusion and being able to reap the rewards of all the seeds which have been sown. Investments pay off. Relationships move to the next level. You can finally relax. This comes up when you’re reaching the end of a portion of your life, if you’ve been studying for a degree, it indicates passing and going on to the next level, it could also be marriage after a long engagement, or even both. It can also indicate travel, trips and being able to teach others.

There are several ways that could be accurate. Sam’s health is certainly much improved by the time the story starts. He’s still got some issues going on, given he has ravaged himself in several ways; but things do seem to be coming back together. It’s hard for Brad to process or relate to a lot of things Sam went through given they grew up in very different environments, and there was a lot of hurt and conflict but they’re actually able to work through those things while Sam explains himself, especially given that hearing about Sam’s upbringing shows Brad why Sam is so afraid to be close to people.

The Four here is a bit of a warning though. You’re getting all these rewards and all these good things, and there’s a want now to hold on tight to everything and not share with others, to keep what you have earned and save it for fear that it will disappear again, but this is unjustified, you will do much better if you take what you have and learn from it, and let others know so that they will not commit similar mistakes so that everyone can learn these lessons and take them to heart. What you give out you get back at least three-fold if not more.

This part is the only part that confuses me as both reader and story writer. I’m leaning towards the fact that it’s saying that Brad should not smother Sam after hearing what he went through and seeing what he’s gone through health-wise. That Sam does not need protecting in that sense. Alternately I wonder if it’s suggesting that they should use Sam’s recollections to write his memoir, in the book, and publish it to share with the people of their Earth and the colonies what happened.

The Ten is a great card to have here. This relationship WORKS, is what it’s saying. You can have a great time together. There is love here, there is happiness here and friendship. All the semi-cheesy cookie cutter “Hallmark” moments can be here, but without the cheese. It’s there, the issue appears to be trusting that it is in fact there, it’s hard for one or both of you to accept or believe in what is before them; which brings us to what doesn’t work; the Ace of Swords, which is potential. This is not to say potential is a bad thing, this is more be careful. You’re feeling better, sharper and you want to get out there and do things, however you mustn’t push too fast, you may be getting better but health is still an issue, if you push yourself to do things the way you have in the past you’ll be back in the soup again and worse than ever. Take things slowly. You have time.

They do click very well, but the Sword actions are something that Sam did. He had to go and work with their Earth’s equivalent of the FBI to identify some people, got sick while doing that, was in hospital, got better, then went right back to doing a bajillion things, started to get sick again, and ran away. These sort of patterns are B-A-D bad.

The potential here is an interesting combination of cards, the Prince is a card indicating one or two who love deeply and passionately once they allow themselves to do so. However if this card were a character they would be Romeo, so there is a bit of caution to be allowed with this deep romance, a worry about going too far, loving too much, which could be a downfall. The five, however, is a card of loss. I don’t think this is a financial loss despite it being pentacles, most other cards have pointed to health issues, so this is probably another warning on that regard. You may have lost but you have to try and focus on the fact that you still have a lot of good things, and while it may seem like there is no end to all of these troubles, things will get better especially if you focus on each other and the connections there and do not spurn the aid of those who are there for you.

The Prince reminds me a bit of Sam. He professes to not care about romance, and has been frankly a slut in the past, however he was always secretly wanting a relationship and the romance of it all, except he would crush on straight men quite a bit and mope about that and drink more.
He has lost quite a bit as far as health goes, including his sight, as becomes apparent in chapter two of the story, and a good portion of his liver, and function of his lungs. However, he is learning to celebrate the fact that he is alive and does have people who care about him despite his stupid mistakes. Brad is also learning to accept that Sam does care also, as one of his fears was that he was doing all this and had actually been being used this whole time.

So there’s that, my follow-up on the reading. I very much liked doing this, it’s an interesting and fun way to continue character studies.

I’ve gotten a lot of outline planning done for “Too Deep” over the past few days; but I got stuck yesterday. I have 20 pages of outline and am about halfway through the story (probably) I know where it’s going; but I’m still not quite sure how to get to the outcome. I had some ideas but they were a bit too cliche, and I keep scratching things out and coming back to it and still being stuck.
I’ve been thinking about actually working on the story itself and then coming back to the planning, get things out a little more, much the way you might go to www.fatburner.org to get help with losing weight if you’re stuck on your diet.
Some times changing things up a bit does help with getting things moving again, and that’s what I’m hoping to achieve.

A lot of my stories take place in the future so I tend to do a lot of extrapolating as to how things will be then. From the mundane to the highly technical.
For example the CONDOR story that I have takes place, primarily, on a spaceship. While there are a lot of television shows that think and show how life on a spaceship might be in the future I try to steer away from certain things that have been done, like transporters or teleporters. I look to other things, such as ways to keep in shape while in space, ways to generate artificial gravity, ways for oceanic species to exist among air breathers, even if they might need acne treatment creams, toothcare, transplants, artificial limbs, ocular implants, communication systems, how television would work.

I don’t think there’ll be flat screen television. I’ve always thought that television would be more projection based, a full experience rather than just flat watching, and it seems I may be on the right track with that. I also figure that there’ll be a lot more interaction, society as a whole is embracing the digital nature of communication. A lot of television shows are embracing Facebook and Twitter to interact with their fans and get direct input. I could see in the future that television shows might even embrace that to the degree of being live and getting input from their fans as to how things should go, in a sort of “choose your own adventure” fashion.

I also figure that work outs will go the way of the Wii, that they’ll be highly interactive, using perhaps gloves and leg sensors and pads that sense the amount of weight that you’re putting out.

Some times the location of your story can be a character in and of itself, other times it’s just a background; but it has to be something that you research just as much as your background for the more animate characters.

When looking at Sanctity most of that story takes place in a town that I can picture because it’s very similar to where I went to college, so it’s easy for me to write about that I can picture my time in college and modify things slightly, whereas where Dane fled to which is somewhere in South Carolina, that I’m not as familiar with. I’ve seen South Carolina only from the other side of the Suwannee, when we visited a friend who was in Savannah, Georgia.

So, I have to look at the which myrtle beach hotels she would have stayed in when she first got there, what sort of apartments they might have in the area that she could have moved in to. I mean, a lot of dives are going to be very similar no matter where they are, but it’s still helpful. In Florida a lot places are very Spanish in style of architectural influence, or alternately they are very similar built out of an injection mold almost, but I don’t know if that’s expected in South Carolina, are designs more unique, what sort of culture would influence their designs.

These are important things to realize.

I’m expanding my knowledge on the main characters for “Too Deep”. I know I still have “Sanctity” in the pipeline but the way my muses work I have to go with what I get, and what I’m getting for the past couple of days has been Sam and Brad.

One of the main differences is the environments they grew up in. Brad grew up on Earth with a stable, loving family and good prospects. The war didn’t touch him directly, but still he grew into a conscientious thinking individual who wants to rebuild and help make things right for the future.

Sam on the other hand grew up on the Lunar Colony with little to nothing, his parents were killed in a drug raid, his older brother looked after him in the slums for a few years until the government tried to wipe out the slums with a viral outbreak which killed the older brother and then he gets taken in to an orphanage, but works out of their as a courier up ’til and after the place that was leveled, when he got roped into working for the rebellion to get out of going to jail, and probably winding up dead.

After the war he meets up with Brad at college. While he had no formal education he was able to take courses and basically “clep out” of high school. I’m working on how to do that. Most of the world is centered around Eurasia the way I have it envisioned. So, they don’t have the same sort of high school equivalence tests that I’ve become used to in the states. Rather than try to do something I figured I would just research some others, I’ve found some help looking at
LSAT prep courses. The way it would work with Sam given he has an eidetic memory is that if he took and studied the preparatory courses he would be pretty much set to take the tests and get a good grade. So, the futuristic equivalent of Knewton would be something he would wind up very familiar with, and when I research their way I find they’re extremely thorough. They have a great program, some times research gives you strange gems. I can’t believe that they offer online classes to prep you for your test, syllbi, study guides, quizzes, practice and even text alerts.

That’s very different to the way it was for me where I was basically given a huge boring book and had to slog my way through. It makes me wonder by the time that Sam is doing this how many more advances there would be. There’ll probably be computer games to help him study and information beamed directly into the living room on a virtual program. I figure the Wii style of system would have been expounded upon, where computers will be very VR based.

I was getting input and information about another story I’ve had in the pipeline which is tentatively called “Too Deep” because when I first started planning it I would always associate the main character with a certain song by Sum 41: In Too Deep.

While Kore and I were cleaning up her room I was chatting with her about a dream I’d had the night before involving a couple of the characters and that talk about the dream wound up with my expounding upon the timeline of the main character’s life. He’s really alive in my head.

However I wasn’t sure if one of the things. Initially when I’d first started talking about Sam I’d thought he wound up with one of his cohorts. It seemed a little weird as the cohort wasn’t really interested in Sam that way I’d thought, and I’d felt that perhaps I contrived it just because I wanted him to be with the cohort. However the more I was talking about the dream the more I realized that his boyfriend Brad was a decent guy and it would be really a shame if they didn’t stay together because Sam being an idiot broke up with Brad when he thought that he was going to die. One of those stupid “it’ll hurt less if I die and we’re not together” sort of mindsets. I’m not sure if Sam would actually wind up with Brad, but one of the beauties of writing the story is that I can make him wind up with Brad. In fact I’ve decided the story will come from the perspective of him explaining his life to Brad as a condition of them coming back together as a couple, given one of the main issues in their relationship had been Sam not wanting to tell Brad about his past actions during the war because he was afraid of talking about that.

I’ve been working on planning for a few stories that are in the pipeline as well as doing a bit more on the “Sanctity” story that I’ve mentioned several times. I feel it’s important to know a lot about the characters that you’re writing about.

Dane for example.
She goes by Dane Malachi, but I’m pretty sure that her name is actually Danielle. I say that because I have a few different ideas for “full name” knocking around but Danielle is the one I keep coming back to, so eventually it will stick. She had a pretty crummy upbringing with addicted parents, and abuses and the like, and she actually lived in the area of Flagstaff where the story takes place. She’s basically been trying to escape her whole life. She started out with the high school drinking and things like that, but then attempted to get away more legitimately with getting odd jobs at circuit city and local cafeterias and that with the idea of saving up money and blowing the town.
Then things kept coming up, she couldn’t qualify for scholarships elsewhere, she couldn’t get things working, it was like no matter how hard she tried she just kept getting sucked back into the town so she fell back on the less savory coping mechanisms, expanding to drugs as well as alcohol and taking St. Aurous up on the offer of going there, with some rudimentary idea of getting things together enough once she got through college. Then she met Michael who was a chronic enabler, she got pregnant but lost the baby given all the abuses to her body and the two of them decided to commit the ultimate self-destruction only she didn’t die. She woke back up with the Angel of Death very much active around her and no matter what she tried she wasn’t going to die again and she wasn’t going to get out of her Duties.
When Dan came around and activated she was secretly jubilant she figured he would take over and she could just disappear and die. However that still didn’t work…

So when she returns to St. Aurous she’s extremely, extremely pissed. She can’t get out of things and she can’t seem to do anything right.

I’ve been been handwriting out a lot of “Sanctity” over the past few days. I’ve been working on the introduction of the other characters and how their story will interweve with the Dane things I’ve already written. The new introduction of Hajime and Abigail makes a lot more sense. It shows them both at the same time and establishes the setting and also their relationship with each other.

This section is Abigail looking at the college the same time.

Around the fountain were gardens they were ill-kept and it looked as though someone had recently fallen into one of the bushes and perhaps rolled out into the neighboring flower beds.
The college itself loomed over the fountain. To get to the front entrance they had to walk around the fountain and up a flight of chipping stone stairs to a large arched heavy wooden door bound with metal. The walls were thick grey stone and red brick. Now, Abigail realized how many people were milling around them. Sveral of them were wearing bright blue shirts with the St. Aurous logo on it, and they were leading groups of students and people who were probably their parents around.
“It looks more like a hotel,” Hajime said.
She was right, with the mosaic floor and the wrap around stone staircases and the lighting fixture a huge chandelier that hung down over the center of the entrance she couldn’t help but imagine the security office used to open up to keys and receptionists.
“It was a hotel,” a blue shirt nearby said. He was sitting at a large collapsible table stacked up with folders all bearing pictures of the college surrounded by circular insets of students engaging in happy activities and studious ones with equal glee.
“That explains it then,” Abigail answered, not sure what else she could say.
He laughed and she felt her insides melting.

Planning helps. I’ve been realizing that certain ways of doing things make more sense, not just planning story-wise, but the way that the characters in the story would plan things too. It makes a lot more sense if you’re looking for someone who should be coming into the area and you’re at a college to station one of your number on the “welcoming” and “tour guide” committee for example.