A Flurry of Feathers and Wings

So you know when you ask a little kid to tell you a story, and often it involves little more than just whatever they make up right then and there? That's the concept behind And Then.

Part story, part MST3K, part meta, AT would be a short children's book where anything can and will... make no sense. Ideally it would have lots of pictures, as part of the fun of the story would be seeing what's being told at the same time as things get changed due to story convience.

It would most likely start fairly simply, a young boy is asked to tell a story. So he starts simply, a boy on a farm. Who decides to become a hero. With his pet dog. Who is really a wolf. Who is really big enough to ride on. Because horses are for girls.

He decides to go slay a dragon. Because that's what heros do. And then the dragon comes to him!

A big green dragon?

It's not a green dragon. It's gold.

Why gold

Because. And they fight! And the dragon opens his mouth and-

Breathes fire.

No! A cannon appears! Because it's not a real dragon! It's a flying pirate ship that only looks like a dragon.

And so on and so forth. And yes, the idea would be that the "adult" being told said story interjects here and there just to question the train of logic of a five year old; the pictures, when not picturing the story, would be from our, the reader's, point of view, so we're looking down at our story teller from time to time.

Spoiler warning, if you really care enough, the ending would ideally be a non-ending. The whole things just builds and builds til it's a huge two-page or more spread of a epic battle of awesome until the kid just runs out of steam with,

"And then... and then... everything exploded.

...

BOOM!" with his hands up, laughing, running around and out the door. The last bit would have the kid leaning in from the door long enough to say "TheendI'mgonnaplayoutsidenow,okaybye."

Yeah. That's it. That's my latest story idea.

....

BOOM!

Well, I thought I was gonna make my first real entry to the new "If I Could Remake" series I want to start, but instead I give to you another of my many ideas in progress.

Network, once it finally figured itself out, is a spy thriller about a black ops ground intelligence inflitator codenamed Ghost who was forgotten and lost during the US Intelligence department consolidation and restructuring, who continues his mission of creating and expanding contacts who owe favors in various fields for some unknown later use. Put a gun to my head, and the high concept pitch for this would be, "It's a spy mix of Vengeance Unlimited and The Pretender."

In reality, what this story was was a way to give a bunch of characters I had at the time who had no homes a place to live. There were at least four to six characters who I thought were really interesting as characters, but that was it; I knew they couldn't carry a full story all by themselves, at least not any story I could think of or wanted to tell. So I was stuck with pages of people who were itching to be worked with, as well as scenes I wanted to use them in but not enough meat for any one to go the way alone. So, now with intent, I specifically created a character to which all the others could connect to.

( Rabble, babble, abble, sabble )

Sorry bout the lack of updates, I haven't felt very talkative. But being silent isn't doing me any good, so instead lets ramble about old ideas.

Psycho, My Own was a highschool era project that came out of no where. Well, maybe not total no where, I was really big into CrossGen comics at the time and their whole shared world universe. I think I was trying for something like that, but really I have no idea any more. No matter what way, this was going to be a huge undertaking.

Jerome Matthew Excaliber was hailed as the genius of his time. Gifted from childhood, after suffering a concussion and some head trauma at age six from falling into a river, he held multiple degrees in a wide range of fields, was a noted author and lecture speaker, and a husband and father. At some point, whether through slow deterioration or a sudden jerk, he snapped, killing his wife and two daughters, as well as a few others. Why exactly is still being determined. In the mean time, he's been padding out his mental hospital resume, going through ten of them in a little under eight years. He's attempted escape several times, gotten close on a couple of those, and generally seems to define a broken genius.

He copes, or perhaps is kept occupied, by his continued work. Wherever he is, he still keeps notebooks and thick texts of whatever he's tackling at that time. The plus side to this is it keeps him relatively calm and conducted, as well as still making use of his vast knowledge. The down side is no one can really make sense of what it is he's doing, his notes being a hodge-podge of seemingly random formuli, code, and hand copied sections of text.

With great genius also comes great mental illness, and Jerome travels the gaunlet of pyschosi. Severe paranoia, schizopherenia, debilitating obessive complusiveness, massive co-dependancy, multiple personality disorder, irrational claustrophobia, he's gone through a wide range of mental illnesses, all at varying lengths of time and severity. What works one day may not the next. What some start to wonder is if it isn't a mental problem, and intentional to keep everyone off their guard.

For the story, the most played with, and real for him, is the multiple personalities. Seemingly deterived from his Excaliber surname, they are Arthur, Gwenevere, the Lady and the Dragon. And all of them are slightly different.

Arthur and Gwen are two vocal elements, the ones that do or can act on their own. How they come into control is unknown. Arthur seems to act as the conscience of the body, being the most calm and rational of either Gwen or Jerome. He is old fashioned, often admonishing others for breaks of etiquette. By choice, doctors and orderlies would rather he be in control, as he is well aware of past actions taken by Jerome or Gwen and agrees they belong under watch.

Gwenevere plays the more loony side of things. Much more volitial and prone to aggression, Gwen is extremely jeolous towards anyone Arthur speaks to. While she can be caring and soft, she also suffers the worst of hallucinations and paranoia between the three.

How they play out in Jerome's head is strange, because while they are seperate entities, they can appear (at least to Jerome) as ghostly figures and hold a three-way conversation. But they can just as well not be aware of events that happen to another, unless specifically told. Sometimes Jerome is alone in his head, sometimes he's never alone, and sometimes he not even driving the bus.

The Lady and Dragon seem to act as shoulder angels. They don't appear physically in Jerome like Arthur or Gwen, but neither are they hallucinations. Both are amorphous, detailed more by presense and air than any physical description. Both also seem to be able to know more than they should, and often can give information about others that they should never be able to know. The Lady is the most direct, and can have a calming effect on even Gwenevere. The Dragon never seems to really speak, only appear (and then only to the eyes of Jerome (maybe)) and that alone can spark an episode in Jerome.

The general theory is the Dragon is the reason, or even cause, of Jerome's psychoic break, and may have been the first of the personalites to appear.

I don't really know where the story was going, all I had was a fairly detailed history and outline of the character. I know the story really starts to take place after he escapes his latest facility, but to what aim I have no clue. All I had was a character profile, several faux documents, and a vague idea of what I was doing.

Looking back on it, I was massively in over my head. The subject matter alone needed much, much more research than I had at the time, and I had no idea how much I needed back then. The story itself was much bigger than I thought as well, and probably too much to take on at the time of conception. While I like the character, and the possibilities he opens up, I think this idea is pretty much shelved unless I really have a revelation to what it all is working towards. And even then, to really go at it, I'd need months more of research and whatnot to not insult any and everyone over my lack of medical and mental knowledge.

I'm not even sure what kind of genre this would be, even just to have an idea of where it would go. I like the idea of the Lady and Dragon, they open up the possibilities for a more dark, Lovecraftian path. It couldn't really go The Fugitive thriller route, because he did do the crime, so he's not aiming to clear his name.

Whatever, I'm not going to waste brain power thinking about what I can't do with it. The character is interesting, but with no story it's not going anywhere. Now to put all this word power towards something I do ideas for.

Wow, I think I actually forgot about this one. Not completely, as soon as I remembered the whole jist came back in a moment, but I haven't thought about this one is quite a while, on any level.

Sweet Summer Jazz was another entry in my short list of ideas I thought would make a better movie than written story. Concieved around the idea of music (more specifically, "Everybody Wants to be a Cat" (yeah, I know, two links in two posts in a row, but I love this song) it was during the time when Disney wasn't putting out animated musicals any more (Home on the Range sucked and I don't acknowledge it), and all the CGI movies that came out that hand music was always pop songs inserted for a montage or to be "the song from that movie".

Also, the whole thing was kinda, sorta, but I'll deny it later, based on getting "Everybody/Cat" inserted into the movie. But I digress.

SSJ was about a teenage girl, Calli, travelling from a small town to a big city. She's a big jazz enthusiast, and wants to be a band sax player. She also had a cat who was going to be named after a musical term, but I never decided on one.

She has an uncle who own a jazz bar, who and his band are based on the cats from The Arisocats; the cat family also have human cameoes. She'll be staying with him above the bar, but she also wants any opportunity to play. Her uncle has no problem with that, but she will need a band at least; he can't just let her solo from the start.

There's more slapdash as it all goes along. Calli finds a street performer playing drums on the sidewalk. She likes what she hears, and asks the girl to play something with a steadier beat. Calli pulls out her sax and begins a small music number of getting the band together; those two and a few others are pulled together and just make their band right there on the sidewalk.

I never planned most of this out, it was many a lot of quick scene flashes and hints of music rolling in my head. There was also I lot that I thought was too remiansiant of other movies I'd seen. Later there was going to be a battle of bands, though not as a main challenge, and later a shot to get some radio play. There was also a rival band, who were more just antagonists (possibly a love interest for Calli, I forget). As I said, nothing really solid.

I remember part of the end, mainly because I knew it'd be the hardest selling point of the story. Calli would die before the end (not right before the credits, but it's not what one would call a happy ending). She'd be hit by a car and her death would pretty much break up her band, but still inspiring them to continue with music.

The idea was to be in the spirit of Miyazaki, where there is no real villian to defeat. Challenges and obsticles, yes, but nothing really sinister. Calli has a competitive spirit, and wants to prove herself despite being yound and not exactly knowing what she's doing. She also plays a mean sax solo. But at no point since this started mulling around my head did I ever see a true villian. One would just seem out of place; the story is Calli and music, there was never a need to have someone trying to stop her. Beat her to the finish, yes, there's a rival, but he's not someone who's out to "defeat her at all costs", he just wants to win the prize as much as she does.

One scene that I see pretty clearly is the funeral. Not much really, but the rival/love interest is asked to, and starts playing a small number to close things off. He starts solemn, like he was asked, but turns up the rhythm and beat, knowing that she was never big on downer music like that.

The whole thing is still really segmented, and to flesh out a complete story would take some doing. But I still like the idea, if only because I love jazz and the story itself goes against most conventions of what an animated movie needs to have.

I dug this out of the depths of my flashdrive. The date is still on the word.doc 3-10-99. Wow. waitasecond, that was eighth grade for me, what happened there?

I forget what exactly the project was originally, I want to say we had to create our own, wait! that was it! the assignment was to create our own island, draw it out as well, and map out all the features. What I have here is the extra credit part, where you were to create the culture and people.

What I did with the first part was instead of a single island, I created an archipeligo. Thirteen islands, with four peoples and desperate cultures, and intersecting mythology. I was an ambishish child, which often got me into trouble come time to actually finish assignments.

Speaking of which, I never finished the extra credit work (I also lost the map). Don't remember why, but what's there is what I did do. Right as things were about to be thrown down too. Hell, I stopped midsentence, so that just shows how much I really into finishing it. Ah well, I cringe at seeing what I used to be, but still see hints of the style that would stay with me.

Rereading through it, I apparently was big on names. Because I made up as many I could apparently (but for some reason though "celtic" would fit right in). And used every one. Lots of info dumping at the beginning. Kinda makes me want to go back and rework everything. And the actual legend story at the end is something I'm keeping and want to rework into something better. The ideas are still decent... but this is just... I shake and hang my head in embarrassed shame.

( Kareen: where, with all the other names I had made up, at some point I thought Tanto was a good name for a island native and not at all racist )

Oh the suspense, it pulls at me so.

Lately I haven't have much gumption to write anything; don't know why, just not feeling it. In the mean time, my brain's decided to take two vague notebook ideas and combine them into someone who has no place in any story I have so far. Just a guy, a creepy guy, who decided to walk in through the door and take a number. No idea as to what this guy will go to, but he seems like a nice duck-fucking crazy sonabitch.

A mix of two concepts, one being the build and name, and the other being his personality and mask. Mr. Thin is some sort of boogeyman and freaky as hell. He's tall and thin (gee, didn't see that coming), always seen wearing a long jacket and a wide brimmed hat. The look is kinda cliche, it's pretty much the standard now of the action hero, but it's meant to enhance his... tall and thinness. That coulda sounded better...

His name tells a lot about him. He's thin; very tall and almost stretched just that little bit beyond normal, so he looks like he's just tall but something still isn't right about him. His fingers are long as well. When I thought about his fingers, I thought about how piano players usually have longer fingers than most, so I made him a piano player. Don't know why exactly, seems strange to have a boogeyman with a hobby, but it's interesting when he plays. I wish I could play, and could write music while I'm at it, because I imagine him playing just this haunting, goosebump bringing music. Just because he can.

One of the main things about him is his face. I don't know exactly what it looks like underneigh, but he wears a mask all the time. A mask made up of a someone's (I wanna say a child's, but that seems a bit too dark, but then again...) face tied on with a few strings. It obviously doesn't fit well, and you can see miscolored skin where the mask isn't able to cover completely. Since he isn't quite human (I'm pretty sure) this is his attempt to look so, regardless that it doesn't look right.

Mainly his look is all I have down, motivation and any substantional story have yet to be found. Still, he seems interesting enough, so maybe I'll find a place for him yet. Or at least keep him in reserve and rework him into something more workable later.

I'm sidestepping Pyscho, My Own, which is what I'd thought I'd be going over again, but apparently I'm avoiding it (ie, i'm lazy), so instead I'm a gonna expond upon the newest distraction in my writing life, The Blackberry Wall.

And really, at the moment there isn't a whole lot to it. Nothing beyond a opening staging act, and little in the way of details, mainly because I'm- you know what, I'm not even talking about it.

Blackberry came to me simply enough; down the road from my apartment is a park, and between the park and the road is a long stretch of blackberry bushes. It's at least a hundred yards long, from where the bushes start to where it ends if you walk along the road. It's a good home defense, and that's probably why they're so abundant right there, because at the corner is a house hidden up behind the trees, and the blackberries the first line of defense.

They're also delicious, and when I go for runs I usually stop and walk that lenght and pick off and eat as many as I can.

But the smell is what started the whole thing. As the berries ripened, the smell they produce is amazing on good breezy days. Just walking by makes you hungry; it also makes you want to go the nearest BB&B and buy a couple scented candles to keep it going.

There was also a mix of me thinking about something I read about when you write a quiry letter, not to include rhetorical questions asking stupid things like "Will he be able to save the world", "Can she find love, or will she have to break her own heart" as a means of trying to hook the reader of said letter into becoming curious. So naturally my mind wandered, and asked myself "What's behind-" and then there was the title.

The overall idea is there is this tall wall in the Middle of Nowhere, English Countryside. There isn't really anything else around, just some rolling hills, a couple scattered trees here and there, a few forgotten smaller rock walls dividing pastures that have no animals grazing. This fifteen foot high wall is some hundreds of yards long, and completely covered in blackberry brush. And always with ripened berries at all times of the year, even winter. And so the smell lingers all the time; you get used to it.

No one really knows what is on the other side. Or if there is even a way to get to the other side at all. Some people who walk along it claim they hear things coming from across the brick and brush. But you learn not to really question the wall, and what's behind it. Just enjoy the year round berries.

Somewhere along the wall, but not attached to the wall, is a nice, fairly large sized home, the only obvious sign of people living out there for some miles in any direction; besides the wall. This home is where [unnamed heroine] has come to stay for [currently unknown] reasons. But she is a curious one, and questions the wall. It must end somewhere; where does it go? What's on the other side? Who built it? Why are the blackberries always in season?

She takes to walking the walls length to pass time, trying to hear something, anything. Despite being told some people do hear things, she never does. But she could've sworn she saw light coming somewhere behind the wall that one night, faint as it was. And she's tried to actually touch the stone behind the branches and thorns, but the blackberry covering is too thick. Finally she throws a rock over the wall, frustrated over her failings.

Then the rock comes back.

...

That's it. That's as far as I have so far, because I've realized several things about this story, and they are things that could get tricky for me. For one, there are several influences to this story, namely Narnia, Stardust, and The Secret Garden, and to me all of them are obvious; secret hidden world (Narnia), wall as a barrier of a secret world (Stardust), stone inclosure of hidden green wonders (Garden). And because of those factors, what I'd like to avoid is being too closely compared to those stories. The overall problem being, at the moment it doesn't look like there's a lot of different ways to go.

So, currently, this idea is stuck. I like the concept, but don't really have anywhere to go with it. It's just a fun little babble. I'd like to try to continue it somewhere, but as I said I'm not sure at the moment on how to do so that isn't a direct lift from any of the preceeding influences.

For those who don't maybe know, I start a lot of projects; stupidly, because there are many beyond what I can actually focus on at one time. Part of this is because my mind wanders (with tracking chip installed) often and comes up with ideas that are interesting. But because of over work, I have a pretty good collection of story titles, some in use, others needing to be started... and then those that I don't even have anything for, just a title.

So, because I feel like doing more than just letting the 30DoW meme do all the work here, I'm going to list (because lists are fun) those that I have. Enjoy.

- The Blackberry Wall
- Tigress (alt. Tai-lan, the Tiger Princess)
- In the Wake of Kings
- Amery Lampkin, the Not-Captain
- Lightning's Child
- Little Red Riding Wolf
- Trader Wood
- Kareen
- Lord Crow
- Search of the Silence
- A Noir Story (working title)
- Pearl Moon
- Whisper
- Stormblades
- The Smoke Dancer
- Psycho, My Own
- Gothic Cross
- T.R.O. (Technotronic Rock Operatic)
- Network
- The Three Little Pimps (eh, why not, I'll list it)
- eeh, there's anther dozen or so titles, but they're from stories that are so old it dips back into when I tried my hand at fanfiction

Yeesh, writing all those out makes it look like I have no drive. And it's not that (I swear), I'd just rather get something down on paper/drive and let it sit instead of letting it fester in my head while I try to work on something else. It helps, sorta, that not all those are whole books, most of what's in the middle are short stories meant to go together in a collection; then again, Tigress and Amery were among that collection, and they went through a creative mitosis of their own to become larger than their part. Bastards.

If anyone has any questions about any of these, let me know.

Okay, I'll get to that, but first: the fucking hell?! Who the hell keeps green lighting this crap?! What's next, Huckleberry Hound? Snaggle Puss? Oh, wait, we need a summer action, let's do Wacky Races! I just... after the Scooby, and then the Chipmunks... Smurfs coming... GAAAH! My childhood is not yours for the taking!

***

Whew, okay... I'm good.

Just...grrr.

World building. Right.

A while back on a_soc_k, there was discussion on what one would do to make their fantasy world unique... or was it, how to make their dragons unique? Something, anyway, one suggestion I made was making dragons, instead of solitary or special, was multiplying them. Make them very common, to the point that you worry more about the big ones than you do about them being there.

Well, not just that. Dragons, in this world, would become the equivalent of horses, though horses would not be entirely replaced. They'd be about the same relative size, hold one to maybe two people, with fire breathing based a bit on Flight of Dragons, where they'd need to chew limestone in order to achieve flame.

The main reason I came to this was because I had an inkling of an idea of a farmboy and his dragon, and I wanted it to not suck *coughEragoncough*. So, if dragons are an everyday animal, they aren't special. Fudging on the terms of "farmboy", his family owns a dragon stable, where they breed, raise and train dragons. He actually has a family, not some orphan peddled off to an impoverished uncle somewhere; in fact, while not rich-rich, they aren't exactly hurting economic wise. Also, if he grows up around the dragons, it makes sense that he knows how to ride, could figure out how to fight on one, and has a good handle on dragon husbandry.

The dragons themselves are moderately intelligent. A little higher than say, a very smart dog; maybe a rung above a dolphin. They can be taught basic commands, can follow verbal ones as well, with their intelligence growing over age. Some can even learn some speech, though it wouldn't get to conversation level. At best, I figure they could say names, words, and identify things, but aren't going to be using pronouns and such. They can be long lived, the more purebred ones, so the time they have to learn can vary.

Feral dragons are the ones of legends, the ones that breath fire indiscriminately and grow to huge sizes. These are also the kind that are more solitary, needing more room for themselves, and will defend their territory from others. You could, in theory, catch and tame one, but why is the question you'd have to ask yourself.

The world itself has accommodated itself to their usage, with stables for dragons at most villages and towns. Messages and such can travel quicker, people can live and build further away from civilization, being able to travel further. Militarizes make use of them as scouts and are beginning to form air forces.

I haven't decided whether or not I want magic in this world or not. If so, it most likely won't be the "flashy" magic, where spells light up and things are a big spectacle, more subdued and natural. They can have a big effect, but aren't going to be huge productions.

There's a high fantasy story I'm letting simmer on the side, In the Wake of Kings, that I'm debating about whether or not I want this to merge together. I don't think it'd work well, because this seems more like a YA book, possible a series, where the plot is fast paced and there's a small core set of main characters. Kings is geared to be a huge undertaking, much more mature themes over all, with a lot of layers in terms of plot, characterization, and narrative. And with all that, I don't know if I want to combine that with this, seemingly, little dragon story. I see ways it could, and they do have some areas where they could overlap, but it still doesn't feel quite right. But at the same time, I don't know if I want another story to sit in the wings. I have enough of those.

Pretty basic, what I have so far, but it's an inkling. It promises good things, and I like how it goes against a lot of what is, quote unquote, "established" for YA heroes (ie, orphan, uber-special, called to destiny) so it'd set itself apart, I hope. When I came up with this, How to Train Your Dragon hadn't come out yet, so I'm thinking I'll need to double check to make sure they aren't too similar; I don't suspect that to be the case, but it's good to know these things ahead of time.

***

Also, I've come to the conclusion that I need to see Up.

This was an idea I've been letting stew for a few weeks. In high school, one of my creative writing teacher's few good ideas was to have us write new versions of fairy tales. My messed up story became The Three Little Pimps (yeah, it was a good as it sounds), but I liked the idea.

I never understood why every version of Red Riding Hood had the Big Bad Wolf as the bad guy. Well, yeah, I do, but that's not what I'm going for. They were always two separate characters. So I had the idea to combine them. So yeah. Werewolves.

I thought it took the old story and twisted it a bit. And I can't remember ever seeing the idea done before, so I'm trying to work the kinks out.

There's a possibility for vampires but at the moment: a) I'm trying not to steer too close to Twilight territory, and b) I'm not sure how they'd work yet, into the story. I have a vague idea of how vampires would exist in that world, and it goes counter to most "they're undead" narratives, but how to get (one of) them and Riding Hood together is still up in air.

As for the subject title...I ran the story title past a good friend, who's been my idea filter for years, and her first comment back was the title reminded her of a porno. And then the imagery got into my head. It burned. But for the moment I can't think of anything better, so for now it stays.

DEAR GOD THERE IT IS AGAIN AAAAAHHHHH.