Patterns

The world is full of them. (Or, if you want to go that way: humans view the world in patterns.) There are certain things that you know will and won’t happen. 2+2=4 (under the usual assumptions); Sarah Brightman will not appear in a movie with Paris Hilton. Those kinds of things.

That is why, when I came across this, a couple of weeks ago, I concluded it was a big hoax, despite all of the evidence.

I mean, no one would make an sf movie about a postapocalyptic-style world in which people are always buying replacement organs, and in which, when they default on organ payments, the repo man comes to collect the organs, horror movie style. Further, no one would write this as an opera. (Not a musical: an opera, in which every single word is sung.) Also, even if they wanted Sarah Brightman to join in the madness, she would not. And especially not if they were also casting Paris Hilton as another character, and that girl from Spy Kids in the lead. Although, if in some alternate world in which math is ordinarily conducted in base three or something (evolutionary tendencies led to two fingers on one hand, one on the other?), if things got that far, in this alternate world…I suppose they might name this, this thing, “Repo, the Genetic Opera.”

Seriously…it’s definitely the world this time, not me, right?

Oh, the irony…

I am not good at coming up with short story ideas in the first place. It’s not like I make stories up out of whole cloth; I just sort of maintain my mind (you know, rake the gravel of the paths of my imagination, set out imaginary buckets of paint, plant seeds of parakeet and moons and darning and see what they grow into) and then wait for the ideas to come. And when they light in a field I slowly, nonthreateningly arrange a nest of words around their ankles, trying not to pinch them or leave them so much space that you can’t see their shape from the outside, and then I add more words and more words and hopefully the ideas don’t get spooked and dissolve before I finish, or turn out not to have enough substance for the upper layers of words to hang on.

So it’s not like I’m good at attracting certain kinds of ideas. I have to take what I can get. And what I usually get are ideas suited for novels.* And when I really try to attract short story ideas, they usually turn out to be long short stories. If I squeeze them smaller they are either clearly unfinished, clearly squeezed, or clearly uninspired. And it goes without saying that pretty much all ideas that come spontaneously are spec fic ideas.

So for four years of undergrad, I struggled trying to write non-fantasy short stories. Not because I was trying to get approval–just because it wasn’t usually helpful to me to bring a fantasy story to a workshop, because the comments were usually “Well, I don’t read fantasy, so I can’t really say much about this,” or, occasionally, “Gee, I liked this even though it was fantasy!”

And now lately I’ve been immersed in The Novel, of course. (Cursed novel.) So I suddenly have the deadline of November 1st for two manuscripts for spec fic workshops, and they need to be between 8 and 18 pages (which is shorter than ideas come anyway!). I have one short story idea that will make a good aside to my novel, set in that world, though it will probably run long and have to be really squeezed, but I decide to save that for second because it will be harder to come up with a new story. And I struggle aaaaaaaaaaaaallll day trying to write one story today because this weekend is a freaking family reunion and I certainly won’t have a lot of time to get writing done. And finally, after no less than four false beginnings over an entire day of trying to write, a story breaks upon my imagination** at the eleventh hour and I write out 1,933 words in a quick burst and I have plenty of momentum left on it to barrel through the rest of it tomorrow, and it even looks like it will end up short.

And guess what? It’s a mundane story. As in, drab lit fic. No, really. (Really drab, and really lit fic. I am not suggesting that literary fiction is drab by nature.)

Argh.

*Because I read lots of novels. You know this about me. Sure, I read short stories, but there is no comparing the number of short stories I’ve read to the number of novels I’ve read. They are completely different orders of magnitude. So it’s novel structures that are ingrained.

**Hark, like the dawn!^

^Joking.

Knee Drama

I have cheered up. Earlier this week, I went in to see a knee doctor for ongoing pain (it’s been 2 years since it started being really consistent and really painful, every time I would take a longer-than-an-hour walk). I only went to see a doctor because I finally decided that enough was enough, something had to be done. And then I went in and was told that it was most likely Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome, and he said kind of bluntly that there’s not a lot that can be done about it. I basically will have this problem until my loosey-goosey ligaments decide to tighten up as I age. And when I said, “How long?! It’s been two years,” the doctor gave me this really sympathetic look and wouldn’t give me any kind of time frame whatsoever. From this I take, maybe 10-20 years. (Longer? Spatula, I hope not.) Ugh.

Okay, it bummed me out. Deciding that I absolutely couldn’t stand it any more and going in to get it diagnosed and fixed, only to find that there’s nothing to be done? Depressing, yes.

But then I realized I was being a total wuss (as usual). He didn’t say there was nothing that could be done. He said that there was no quick, easy, or complete solution. I wasn’t banking on easy (why would anything in life be easy?), but I was pretty attached to quick and complete. I have let go of these earthly attachments now, proceeding further on the path to enlightenment (may I bask in the glow of His Spatulaic Glory some day). Basically I can wear a nasty-looking kneee brace of unfathomable bulk when I’m going to be doing a lot of walking, and I can go after physical therapy exercises that target the Vastus Medialis (medial quad muscles): lunges, heel drops, etc. This will likely take months before it bears any fruit whatsoever, and it may not work at all, but you know what? It’s something to do, action I can take to tell myself that I’m moving forward with a solution.

So it was the equivalent of going for homework help and being told that I still had to do the work on my own. A lot of work. And that I had to be patient.* I don’t do well with that, but I can come to a good headspace about it. Also I engaged in some shopping therapy–halloween t-shirts, new sneakers (YAY), etc.

*I have no problem being patient with people. I like people^ and I think they deserve my patience, and when I’m waiting for people I understand that stuff is happening, turning over in their heads, etc. Other things, physical things or delayed gratification or waiting for a book’s release date–a completely different category. I don’t even know why “patient” applies to both kinds of exertion. They are to me entirely distinct skill sets. And I mean, I have a skill set for one, but when I apply the same tools to the other it’s like they don’t fit in the grooves or they break or I injure myself in the new application.

^Except when there are too many of them or I’m in a bad mood. Okay, I like people, just not always in a “I want to be around them” kind of a way. And I like solitude. Hmm. I like people in small doses? Yes, that sounds right. Unless they’re my favorite people, in which case I like lots of big doses.

Diversion

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

Sound familiar?

You may or may not remember classic text adventures. If you do, you probably noticed that they were quickly forgotten, displaced perhaps by such fancy graphical cousins as King’s Quest and Carmen Sandiego. When the ’90s hit and supply and demand of text adventures was pretty much gone, there were many who mourned the loss of such a classy medium for storytelling. These people got together and developed some text adventure game development systems (notably TADS and Inform) and put them out there…for free. The result? Text adventure writing (now known as Interactive Fiction, or IF) was suddenly accessible–anyone could write one!

And they did. For years, there’s been a thriving IF community, developing and producing text adventures for free, just because it’s awesome. Sure, there’s a lot of garbage…but plenty of them absolutely outclass those old commercial games, on an astounding scale.*

Okay, so I’ve been following IF on and off for years (even tinkered with writing some stuff in Inform for a little while, though I never finished anything**), but why do I mention it now? Well, it’s that time of year again: the IFComp 2008. There are several “competitions” for interactive fiction, which are basically ways to release your game so that people know it exists and then play it***, but the IFComp is one I always pay attention to. The IFComp is only for games that can be finished in under two hours (Spring Thing is specifically for longer games), and there’s always a big turnout (35 games this year). My usual trick is to wait till the judging is over, then play a few games from the winners down until I get bored.

But this year…? I decided to join in as a judge. (You need no credentials. All you have to do is play five of the games, at random.) (Of course, I’m counting on having my full six weeks to judge…here’s hoping I hit five games, I’m not even going to try to play all of them.)

Anyway, if you have any interest in IF at all, it’s something well worth checking out. Not the contest–I definitely recommend waiting until the judging is done and play more tried and tested games in the meantime–but text adventures. Here’s a link to getting started in IF. [If you're interested in my personal recommendations, Emily Short is an awesome IF author and excellent for beginners--you could try a short game, like Bronze (a specifically-for-beginners game, an excellent introduction to IF based on Beauty and the Beast) or Galatea (which lasts 30 seconds to 10 minutes, but you have to play it a bunch of times, there are so many possible responses), or a long game, like City of Secrets.]

*In story and implementation. These people look at things as stories, they build incredible, detailed, interactive worlds and characters–often there are love interests, ways to anger characters who would otherwise help you, detailed backstories, memories that different locations evoke for your character…and if you said something like “eat pants” in Zork, it would say (if I remember correctly) something along the lines of “You can’t eat that!” or maybe just “I don’t understand your command.” But in something like “Lost Pig,” last year’s IFComp winner, in which you’re playing as Grunk, the illiterate orc…the pants are fully implemented–

>remove pants
OK, pants off.

>eat pants
Grunk chew on pants, but pants too tough. And them need ketchup. And them get all slobbery.

>put pants on Grunk's head
When Grunk start worrying about what part of Grunk pants should go on, always end up getting confused. Then pants end up on head or some place like that. And that just not right.

When you meet another character and you’re not wearing pants, he doesn’t comment, but if you put them back on in that character’s presence, he says, unprompted, “Thank you, I do appreciate that.” Everything is implemented that smoothly and thoroughly. I mean…okay, another example, I can’t resist. You/Grunk are trying to get this pig, but when you find it:

>grab pig
Grunk walk right up to pig. Pig walk right away from Grunk.

Hmm. Well, when at first you don’t succeed….

>grab pig
Pig run away. So Grunk run after pig. Then pig run around behind Grunk and around front of Grunk and Grunk get dizzy. What Grunk doing again?

>grab pig
Rarr! Grunk run at pig. Pig run from Grunk. Pig and Grunk run around and around room! Whee!

After little bit, both Grunk and pig get tired and stop running. That fun! Wonder if pig have as much fun as Grunk.

>grab pig
Pig see Grunk coming, and it run away to north.

**”She never finished anything” is so going on my tombstone. Unless I get cremated. I guess it could be engraved on the urn…?

***”Spring Thing” is another big one