It Came From Outer Space…

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.

It’s funny how things come to you after you hear something from a caller or see something online.

“I’m gonna tell Turner about the tm-t88iv,” Steve was persisting in saying. Dane was having a hard time tuning him out, “it’s so much better, all this color, faster, the customers will love it.”
“I don’t think the customers give a shit about color. They just want their receipts, and they don’t want to have to come inside for them. They want to get them out there,” she pointed to the pumps, “not in here, and that doesn’t look like it’ll fit out there,” she pointed again.
“What are you saying?” Steve asked.
“I’m saying you need to get your ass out there and change the tape in the pumps.” She chewed on the end of the lollipop stick in her mouth, getting the last possible iota of flavor off the little stump.
Steve looked at her. She looked back. His eyes slid away from hers, and he slunk around the counter picking up the keys he would need and tromped outside into the cold. She sighed.
That was mean!
She jumped, the stump of lollipop stick dropped to the floor, “Stop doing that!” she hissed.
Why? her eternal tormentor inquired. It’s such FUN.

I’m trying to establish Dane’s angel as being playful despite the severity with which it acts in the prologue that I have written so far. I need to work a little better on the attitude, and get across the energy and spunk with which it engages in it’s very depressing job.

I remember another of my step-father’s brilliant career ideas for me was writing greeting cards. He came up with this after I did our personalized photo graduation invitations on my step-sister’s computer so that he didn’t have to order them through the school and pay extra money.

He also thought I should be writing books for children instead of the stories that I normally write. That I would be a great children’s book author. I don’t know why he thought that considering most of the stories that he ever heard me read sections of involved war-torn alien landscapes, people being taken prisoner and their families dying (though that would be appropriate for Disney); but that’s not appropriate for children. He kept saying I could take the things I write and tone them down, make them educational and all these other things which would have meant diminishing my creativity.

As I get older I’m not saying that I couldn’t write children’s books, it’s just not something I’m interested in. My husband has often joked that I should make a book series called “Helpful Declan” about our son and all his attempts to assist me with household tasks that end in comedy, and maybe that would be something, but I have a lot of other crazy stories that have to get out of me first.

Some times words are hard to come by. I don’t get writer’s block quite as much recently while working on the story. However, I’ve been trying to come up with some personalized gifts for my family and that is where it gets a bit tricky.

I really just need to write what comes to me, but it gets hard some times to write what I want to when it’s coming from the heart. I feel strange putting such deep emotion out. I’m not sure why it gets so difficult. It’s like I lock up, freeze, I think it comes from a nervousness at expressing my feelings.

I should employ the same routines I use when I’m writing a story but that always seems to go out the window when I’m not writing stories.

I find it helpful some times to just do random blurbs even if they’re not related to what I’m working on. I liken it to running salt and ice through a filter, it gives your brain a cleanse and a rinse and enables you to focus more clearly on the task at hand. In my case the task at hand is working on “Too Deep” but I’ve come to a rather sticky area of the plot which is very emotional, where the main character is recounting coming across a friend of his, a girl he grew up on the streets with, being attacked by boys in his school and comes to her aid.

So, to cleanse my brain I’m going to write a bit of another story instead and then go back to “Too Deep” ready to slog through the muck and come out the other side. So, this is actually just a random aside with a character I have in another story I haven’t mentioned who is a pilot, who was in an accident, or so she’s being told.

The holo droned and flickered and flickered and woke her up. Holos weren’t supposed to flicker or break up that was part of the point, that and the crisp clear visitation of the events right to you as though you were involved. This was a definite hiccup. The daily deals being offered to contestants on a game show were discorporating the news broadcast that had come on.
She reached for the picture, stumbled and almost fell out of bed. That was when she remembered where she was. This wasn’t her room. Her left hand was completely bandaged which explained why it didn’t move the way she had expected either, as she’d reached for the newscaster. The bed didn’t go the way she expected. There were wheels and beeps and a strange stickiness against her forehead. She reached up with her right hand, the fingers were stiff, and two of them were splinted, but at least she had some motion. A monitoring beacon, well that made sense.
Things were out of place though and not just the rooms’ inability to look like her own room because it wasn’t her own room. The holo shouldn’t flicker, and even if it did she should be able to see why it was, and fix it. Machines had been in her blood before oxygen. Now there was an absence, she felt as though her limbs were lead, things were wrong…
The door opened and a woman in a white uniform walked in. Spying her charge reaching out in quiet desperation towards the hologram she rushed over, “Oh, honey,” she said, “if you need to change it the comm button is right here,” she murmured, “how are you feeling?” she put a hand on her charge’s forehead, despite the fact that all the information was being transmitted to the padd she had at her hip.
“Dry,” she managed, realizing that speech was causing her throat to crack, “it’s wrong…”
The nurse went to the door and picked up a bottle of liquid and brought it in, “Are you one of the cult of Sanqui…I’m sorry I can’t pronounce it, but you know what I mean, right?”
“Yes and no,” she said, then frowned, “I mean, I’m not, but I get it.”
“While we’re at it, what would you like me to call you?” she said, and then realized she was still holding the water, and, “Sorry,” she started to hand it and then stopped, unscrewed the cap and opened it and then offered it.
“Denny’s fine,” she replied after draining half the bottle, and carefully setting it on the table, “I’m sorry though, um, which hospital am I at?”
“It’s Sword Coast,” the nurse replied, “and don’t worry P.D.F. made sure to bring in their own people so they’d fix you up appropriate to, you know,” she wiggled her fingers.
Denny frowned again, “Right,” she said, slowly, “Well, then I’d like to be talking to those people and very soon.”

It’s always interesting when you’re writing a character and suddenly realize they’re racist. Hello Nurse?

It’s been a slow writing day because I need mechanical breakdown insurance. I went to drive the car and she was dead, again, because if I don’t drive her for a couple of days the battery decides it doesn’t have to work any more. So, we jumped her and I took her to the shop because her doing that reminded me I’ve been meaning to take her for an oil change for a couple of weeks now.

I found out that as well as needing a new radiator she’s also going to be needing a new intake manifold soon. Joy! I’m going to the mechanic, “I was only joking about signing her death warrant,” but then not really. She doesn’t owe us anything my poor car. Hubbie and I have spoken before about the fact that we’re essentially running her into the ground. We’ve also talked, especially since I’ve had to quit work again for health reasons about dropping to a one-car family.

We may have to at this point, because I’ve done 2 grand worth of repairs to her since I got her in 2002. To do that much in the space of a few months when we’re barely surviving financially…I can’t bank on finishing a book and getting it published and making it that well, though it’s nice to dream.

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.

The previous post about editing mad me thinking about fanfiction.net and how long it’s been since I’ve been there. I got my original account when I was a young proactiv-smearing college student. I, actually, deleted that account after saving anything I thought might be viable and restarted in the hopes I would actually perfect and finish some of the stories that I’d been writing.

Except it didn’t happen, partially due to the depression, and a lot due to the fact that my tastes have changed. I feel strange writing and getting comments from people who are in some cases less than half my age. It makes me feel uncomfortable.

For the most part the content on there is…strange, twisted, drivel. There are some gems, but a lot of it is just not good at all. It’s the same way with places like deviantart. They attract anyone who wants to showcase their work whether or not it’s good. A bit like an American Idol audition.