The Odor of Tuesdays

The second chapter of the first of the Tales followed the same style as the first. This one, however, focused on smell. While the first spoke of buzzing, here I spoke of ozone. Things are no longer in pristine condition. As I progress, I try to communicate that something is horribly wrong with the world. Burning Fields can only be the product of some horrible event, be it polluting wildfire or massive funeral pyre. Then I tried to give the reader a sense of the alien nature of this world by referring to what I now call the Vortex. I make it an ever present spectre. I give death form. I make the world farther from the light in which you live, but I give it dwelling in the dark recesses of your mind.

Did it work?


And, yes. Today was the last day of the first tale. I was delighted with the ending. I hope you liked it.

The Sorrows

The Sevenfold Sorrows of the Lord is not going to be religious, despite the presence of a character named the Lord and the appearance of a Lucifer.

It came to me in the early morning delirium just before bed. When I started, all I had was the first line. As I wrote, I arbitrarily chose seven to be the number of kings. Then I had the Lord ask a question any Lord might.

It took me a long time to write the next part. I needed every king to have something different to say, something different to rule, and to have a name. I chose names I found delightfully archaic, and I chose lands that I could see people of those names ruling. As it stands, we have six domains (plains, trade routes, forests, oceans, caverns, and mountains)and Lucifer's prophethood. Each king was given a clear standing in respect to the others. The story is not yet completely written, but it's planned. I think I know what will happen, and be assured that it will be sorrowful.

For the Lord, at least,

Chapter One, The Lab

I began by describing the Lab. I saw it in a vision, and I made it be. That's what I love about writing. I can build a world with nothing but will. And I did. I spent a large paragraph on it, so that you might see as I do. Here I made sure to introduce the reader to the idea of the pokémon being feral and huge by saying how they were once domesticated and small. I tried to show that this isn't the pokémon everyone grew up with by mentioning that magikarp were food not companions.

Yes. Magikarp are still useless. I just couldn't make them powerful.

I placed the society on the edge of a knife, always close to falling, by limiting their sources of pokémon to eggs found in the wild. This creates a more maintainable universe, because it let's me endanger the society if I need a plot device. The Seven were a spur of the moment addition, but I was easily able to knit them into the universe.

I made a little inside reference to the opening of the pokémon animated series here, waking Red too late to make it to the calling. Unlike Ash, though, Red is sixteen. It would be stupid to send someone of the age of ten into the world. They would die. In many cultures, though, sixteen is old enough to be considered an adult, and I thought most people would be physically and mentally able to survive at that age. I made the hill steeper here than I previously had imagined it, in case I ever had a siege-like battle at it (I had little of the story planned out here). Red was awed to communicate the grandeur of the lab.

The Guardian was on the roof. This was completely for dramatic effect. Luckily, I justified it to myself by deciding they could see better from up there. Here, I also revealed that the Seven are neither all male, nor all female.

Oak scares me. Once a mild-mannered professor, he has become a muscle-bound leader. Here is a man who can fight off a creature made of rock. Yes, he's tall. Yes, he was adrenaline-fueled. But rhyhorn are canonically over one hundred kilograms, and in my universe they probably weigh far more than that. Also, horn drill. 'Nuff said.

After mutilating the man, I had him give Red a pokémon, say something vaguely ritualistic, and get rid of him. Oak does not like people. People listen to Oak. Oak > Chuck Norris > you.

I ended by murdering Red's childhood, just how I murdered yours by writing this piece. Satisfied, I ended the chapter.

Conclusion

The Lament of the Winged ended today. Its story was told, and it somehow was difficult to write. Despite its low popularity, I felt I accomplished something powerful. Nevertheless, I had nothing more to tell. Maybe one day I'll return. Maybe there's a world to be discovered. Maybe the story just needs to sink into the depths to become diamond in the furnaces of the dark. We shall see.


Note the tenses. We were the winged ones. They are the ascended.

I still have yet to divulge the thoughts behind the tale yet. I intend to, though. Soon, as it's ended, and obviously not eternal like the first Lament. Next week, we will fill the slot with The Sevenfold Sorrows of the Lord.

The Beginning of the First

I wanted to create something that could go anywhere, even though I had an outline from Light up Your Room for the first Tale. I wrote about one thing, using only one sense. Sound. The sound of humming wires. I wanted a sound that pervades everything; something that is background yet never fades from one's notice. I wanted to place a hint of madness in them, an eternal despair. I wanted to create an open-ended world, built upon madness, with only the sense of sound. The next few chapters were built by the same formula.

Bozo's Lament

By now you no doubt realize that a new series occupies what was Met's Song of the Week slot. I realized that Wednesday was the only day without a post, and since Elphaba is preoccupied with her precious fanfiction I thought I could use it. Ever since I wrote Octopus, I thought I should do a story to accompany all of Coulton's songs (With a few exceptions. I can't see myself writing anything for a certain song detailing celabratory illicit activity in May). My hopes are that Met will continue his hiatus until the day God stops dreaming. Then I can place these stories on Saturday, where they belong.

Bozo's Lament would be the first song of Coulton's I ever heard, but for Still Alive which led me to the artist. I always thought it was one of his better works, because it shows the side of clowns we never see. I wanted to give Bozo a story, built on JoCo's framework, and inspired by Len's drawing. What I had was a clown, who smokes, and who dreams of a dead human cannonball every night. He gets pie in his face five days a work week, which makes him angry. The most important information - that which I could not forget - was that it sucks to be a clown. I began with his waking. The choice to make it first person seemed obvious, as it is Bozo who is lamenting. I decided he would be hungover because he would try to drink the pie away. It was about at this point I found profanities sneaking into the story. I was shocked at my finger's betrayal. a rather pleasant site is not a place where profanity belongs in the posts (in the comments I couldn't care less (Only idiots say could care less)). I edited all out when I was finished, and the narrative was actually diminished. I now realize that Bozo wrote the tale, through me, the way he speaks, and that is in the manner of a disgruntled circus employee. It's common knowledge that disgruntled circus employees use obscenities with shocking regularity. But I digress.

I realized, as I neared the conclusion of the first or second paragraph, that I wouldn't be able to work in the dream. I needed to add a new starting paragraph. I tried to make it real, until Artur's flight, so that the realization of the dream melded into the waking. My challenge was communicating how Bozo dislikes this repetitive dream, so that I could end the paragraph with the phrase It sucks to be a clown. Every paragraph ends this way. It is key. Regardless, my next task was to explain why he dislikes the pie with such intensity. It seemed obvious. He worked so hard on his appearance only to be ridiculed. The lion tamers were twins because there had to be two to laugh at Bozo, and twins usually come in groups of two. Here, too, I try to show his smoking habits. He smokes an entire cigarette between the trailer and the tamers. He has a gift.

I had to work in the first verse of the song somehow; Bozo needed a past. Thus I made it part of his final look back. The tenses were messy near the end, and they still irk me. Nonetheless, I think Bozo needed to answer Arthur's question, and this was the way he would. I just think I may have gotten the question wrong, and it may have been about Arthur himself. He may have asked "Do I fly or do I fall?"

Every Saturday I take off my nose and say "Nevermore!" Pie in my face. Five days a work week it's in my face. Pie in my face. It sucks to be a clown.