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Ups And Downs
We’ve had a lot of ups and downs since my last post.
What’s Up?
The age of my firstborn has gone up another year. My beloved Lemby Wemby Woo-Woo is nearly a quarter century old and getting more cranky and geezerific by the day. Be that as it may, she’s also growing more and more stupendously amazing with each passing moment. She started off as an adorable little bundle of sweetness and has grown into a strong, independent woman. I cannot possibly express how incredibly proud I am of her.
The number of people for whom I have to prepare the taxes has gone up. My two younger children had their first job experience last year. It’s been a process, but I’m about halfway done. Hopefully, I can get the federal taxes done before the government closes down again.
The temperature has been soaring up and down like a rollercoaster ride. We went from the mid-60s down to the depths of a polar vortex.
Are You Down, Down, Down, Down, Down?
The polar vortex brought chills to my neck of the woods that reminded me of any day in North Dakota. We actually got down to a natural -20°F without any wind chill. Fortunately, that was only on hand for a day or two. The actual Northern Tier states got chills as cold as -85°F and wind chills as low as -125°F.
Going Beyond
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. ~Arthur C. Clarke
That’s an awesome quote from a world-famous science fiction author and futurist, but my big takeaway from the Space Odyssey stories is that he was in desperate need of a night-light.
There’s nothing wonderful or potentially excellent about igniting Jupiter. Check out the circadian rhythms of people living in the Arctic Circle when there are 24 hours of sunlight. Seriously, just no. No, dammit! No.
The Rama books were boring as hell, too. Sir Arthur certainly pushed the boundaries in his time, but the ponderous nature of his writing took a lot of the enjoyment out of it for me.
The lesson learned is that “there’s a lid for every pot“. Some people think Clarke’s works are some of the greatest words ever written. I’m not one of those people. I think he’s about as boring as watching paint dry.
It stands to reason that some people will think my stories are every bit as boring as that. Some people can’t stand reading fiction. They’re only captivated by real-life stories of contemporary or historical people.
To be completely fair, most of those are unintentional fiction. Somebody recording someone else’s story well after the fact isn’t going to be able to get an actual idea of what was going through somebody’s mind at any given point in history.
For me, writing about what could be is a bit more honest because you do know what’s in a character’s heart or mind at any given moment. That’s part of the charm of the story. It’s one thing to ask “what if“. It’s another thing to walk it through its paces and see what happens.
Try it out for yourself. If I gave you the following story starter:
Martha was running late for dinner…
There’s virtually no chance that you’ll tell the same story as someone else.
You might get some clustering around variations of a theme but you’re simply not going to get two of the same story.
Do you think Martha was late making dinner for her husband and kids? Was Martha a kid who was running late for family dinner? Was she late for a dinner date? Was she procrastinating on a working dinner? Was she habitually late for everything? Was she typically punctual and running late because of traffic, weather or even a Zombie Apocalypse?
As you can see, these are a variety of possible directions for this story to proceed.
Anybody’s guess as to how the author will feel about Martha. Are they going to be sympathetic toward Martha or is she already a lost cause from the first sentence?
Is Martha even going to be a main character? It’s not a given. She might just be a minor antagonist for whoever is preparing or anticipating dinner.
One simple springboard and thousands of possible destinations.
That’s what I like about fiction. You can go anywhere you want as long as you tell a tale worth reading.
Hopefully, I’ve got some of those to share.
Oh well, enough dilly-dallying. I’ve got to get back to my tax preparations. I hope you’re keeping toasty warm wherever you are.