Timothy Callahan

Is this the end?

I considered my writing to be a little bit more than a hobby, yet not exactly a career.  Sure, I wanted to be good at it and I worked hard at being good at it but I never thought I worked harder than say, a person who works on his car on the weekends. Or someone who works hard at a local dinner theater.  I write because it’s something I enjoy doing and if I succeed at it or make money off it, all the better.   

There are times when I work hard to get something published, it never happens, but I try.  I have gone the self-publishing route but really, I don’t have the time to promote my work as I should.  Maybe if I quit my job and worked at it full time I could get some publishing deals, but the truth is I’m not really brave enough to just go off and do something like that. 

I missed some chances when I was unemployed but to be honest I was more worried about getting a job than publishing anything.  Besides, all I had was one short novel that was good, but not great.  I did send it to places, heck I still send it places every once in a while, but so far no one has touched it. I can’t blame them, I’m not a popular name and agents and publishers want people who can make them money. I might be able to make them money but who’s going to take that chance?  If I were an agent or a publisher I don’t think I’d buy my novels.  The writings good, but not strong.  Why spend money publishing something that only a few people might buy?  Agents and publishers tell you they like to take chances on new writers but the odd are I won’t be one of them.   That’s not putting myself down, that’s an honest truth. 

It sounds like I’m giving up or I’m a pessimist.  Trust me, most people around me think I’m too optimistic about things.  I guess when you’re a realist about things that automatically makes it sound pessimistic.  I have hope that if I keep sending my stuff out someone will bite.  It will probably never happen but I have hope.   

I know my work and it’s good.  I like my work.  I read stuff that I’ve written years ago and I like it. I can see its flaws of course but I see flaws in most of the stuff I read.  Are my flaws any worst?   Maybe but until a professional reads my work I’ll never know.  Of course, the only way to get a pro to read my work is to get published.  Or pay a lot of money. I don’t have a lot of money so I’ll have to wait for a pro to buy my stuff.  Which probably won’t ever happen. 

When I spend an hour or so writing something I stop and wonder why I’m doing it.  Who am I writing for?  I want to write for people other than me and a handful of people who might listen to my podcasted writings at podiobooks.com.  The truth is, I’m not sure who I’m writing for anymore. In my 20’s and 30’s I wrote to try to get published.  I wrote to tell people I did something that was interesting.   I wrote because it was a release from a life that, while not horrible, had a bunch of holes that needed to be filled.  I wrote because my imagination was so large it needed an outlet.  I haven’t felt the need to fill any holes in my soul for a while. I wrote the Arwen saga because I had an idea that wouldn’t go away.  Now that that saga is done and I have nothing else to say I wonder why I still write. 

I’m working on another novel and my heart isn’t really in it. Could it be because the novel isn’t good enough to hold my interest or is it something more?  Have I finally gotten sick of spending the limited hours I have in the day writing something that no one will read?  Has my mind finally stopped supplying me with ideas?  Have I gotten to the point in my life where I don’t need to write anymore?  Or, do I simply need to sit back and relax and not worry about all those things?  

 

Characters are people too.

I love the fact I have Netflix and Netflix is now showing a lot of the stuff I used to watch as I was growing up. Over the course of a week I was able to cherry pick some of my favorite Star Trek Next Generation episodes, a few Buffy and Angle shows, and some Arrested Development. I'm eagerly waiting for them to get Deep Space Nine so I can watch those as well. TV was a huge part of forming my imagination, more so than books or movies, although they also played a huge roll, just as big as Television.

What I found interesting as I was watching Next Gen was just how much that show did influence me. Story structure, characters, situations, all the things that show did well I can see in my work today. The Arwen, my very own Star Ship series, can easily trace its roots back to Episodes like Best of Both worlds, Cause and Effect, and The Inner light. It's no coincidence I guess that those are my favorite episodes and, on some level, I wanted to re-write them in some way with my own characters. It wasn't really a conscience choice, it just sort of happened.

Another show that really influenced me, more as a young kid than a teenager, was Star Blazers or, if you were in Japan, Space battleship Yamato. I loved that show so much. I used to race home after school to watch it. I would then try to draw the episode and when I figured out I have no artistic ability I used to write stories about the show, using my own characters in place of the ones on TV. Of course, the stories I wrote were just mirroring the stories on the TV by that really was my first attempts to write a story, all because of that show.

One of the odd things that struck me at that early age were characters. I felt like I was giving people life! If I thought of a character and I wrote about that character I was sort of creating a new life form in my mind and that life form could only act if I let them act, could only do what I wanted them to do. As an 11 year old that was a pretty powerful concept and one that I held on to even as I was learning how to write and how to build story and structure. I would create a character and in my eye the person was alive, not just a figment of my imagination but a real, live being. Which is way I always feel bad when I kill someone in a story.

I also hate it when I just remove a character completely. To me I not only killed someone but he or she no longer existed! That's kind of dark.

In my one novel, Ida, I had to do that. I killed a character half way through the book for impact not realizing I would need him later in the story. I had created another character to take his place but as I wrote it I thought, "why did I just create this new guy when I had a perfectly good guy that I killed?" So, I went back and unkilled the guy and totally wrote out the new guy. I felt bad for the new guy so if I ever do a sequel maybe I'll give him a part. I also think the guy I killed was pretty happy to be alive again, especially since his death was kind of painful to begin with.

I also did that with another character in my Arwen books. I was going to kill him in book two but decided not to but then I killed him in book three for no good reason really. Come to think of it he should have died in the second story cause his death then would have meant more than his death in the third. Oh well, if I could do it over again I would but I can't so he lived to see another story. . .where he died.

When writers talk about how the characters tell them what to do most people who don't write have a hard time understanding that. I understand it. More than once my characters have told me what they want and what they want to do in a situation. I find it hard to get anything past my characters, if they need to act dumb for some sort of plot point to happen I have a hard time making them dumb and I feel I need to trick them into going for the plot point before going forward. Smart characters who act dumb really annoy me so I think it's more that I don't want someone to read my work and go, 'wow, that character is normally on the ball, how does she not know what's going to happen?'

That drives me nuts when I see it on a TV show or a movie. I'll give you an example of a show that I liked a lot but had a hard time watching because the characters acted way dumber than they were supposed to be.

One of the news shows I enjoyed, before it was canceled, was No Ordinary Family. In this show you had a bunch of really smart people. It was a show about people with super powers and how they adjusted to those powers. In fact, one kid had the powers of super-duper smartness.

In one of the episodes they meet a shape shifter who could make herself look like anyone in the family. Now, I can see that fooling people the first time and it made that episode kind of fun. Eventually they find out she's a shape shifter and beat her, she escapes and they hope they've seen the last of her, only they don't know if she'll be back or not.

A few episodes later she does return and does the same thing, taking the shape of family members to get information out of them. Now, as I'm watching that show I can't help but think, "boy, these guys are dumb. They know someone is out there after them who can look like any member of the family wouldn't it be smart to, oh I don't know, come up with code words to ask someone a question only they know when they first meet?"

That's just one example from one show, there are lots of other shows with lots of other examples I can think of. I personally think it takes a lot of imagination to come up with a way to fool your characters without them being dumb.

Like I learned in improv, play up to your characters intelligence, don't make him a dumb guy cause the audience can see right through that.

Captain America, I salute you!

One of the key elements to any good Super Hero movie is this, does the movie hold true to the character? One of the issues I had with the Fantastic Four movies was that they didn't seem to hold true to the comic renditions of the Fantastic Four. There were some elements but for the most part what you saw on the big screen was only a shadow of what was in the comic. One of the things that made the first two Spider-man movies a success was the Spider-manness of the movies. I also think that's what made the third movie a bit of a letdown, it didn't feel like a Spider-man comic through most of its running time. In fact, the times it felt like a Spider-man comic were the best moments in the movie to me. Sandman's transformation, Spider-man and Sandman's first fight, and when Peter Finally got rid of the costume, those felt like Spider-man moments and I enjoyed them. Dancing Peter Parker? Emo Parker? Peter hitting MJ, even by accident, the final fight? Those didn't feel genuine, they didn't feel like Spider-man and I think people picked up on that.

This all brings me to Captain America. They could not have put a more perfect Captain America movie on the screen, not now, not ever. This felt like a Captain America movie, this felt as if they took all the World War 2 Captain America stories, studied then, then placed them on the big screen. Captain America has always been a better character when they focused on his World War 2 days, he was a superhero born in the 40's when it was okay to publish comic books with the main superhero punching Hitler on the jaw and when they place him in the era it's a perfect fit. When I first heard they were making a Captain America movie I thought to myself, "I hope they set it in the second world war" cause that's where we need to be to be introduced to this man. When I found out that's what they were doing I was sold on the movie and looked forward to seeing it.

Personally I think they should set all Captain America movies in the Second World war, I understand they can't cause of the Avengers movie but how cool would that have been?

If I had one complaint about the movie, and this really did kind of bother me, was the it didn't really have a plot. It seemed to be just a series of scenes strung together to get more action, which isn't a bad thing for a superhero movie, but I wanted a little more depth. We had events, things that happened, but the plot was pretty much "go to this location and destroy this base, fight this cool bad guy, talk about it later, rinse and repeat." The acts were really easy to see: Act one: Steve gets his powers. Act two: Steve learns how to be Captain America by going on tour. Act Three: Steve Rogers becomes Captain America, war hero, selfless defender of the American Way. As a writer this structure bothered me, but not enough not to love the movie.

As for everything else I loved it. Chris Pine, an actor I thought was great in Fantastic Four and his cameo in Scott Pilgrim VS the World, was pitch perfect as Steve Rogers.

The Red Skull, Hugo Weaving, perfect, just how I pictured him.

Action was perfect as well. Loved the shield effect, especially the sound it made when being thrown.

I'm looking forward to the Avengers movie, and the trailer at the end of Captain America made me want to see it even more. I can only hope it feels like and Avengers movie cause if it does it'll be one of the best Super Hero movies of all time.

Almost science

I remember my first really bad comment on one of my stories. It was a story where I had the entire city of Chicago evacuating the city after a rather brutal alien invasion of the city. I had never really seen a mass evacuation, never really thought about the logistics behind millions of people walking down a highway toward a military base twenty miles away. I posted that chapter of a larger story on AOL's writing board and let people read and comment on it. I remember being pretty excited, I had posted a few short stories and they got some positive remarks so I was pretty confident that this epic tale would be no different. Heck, it had everything, a dynamic leader, some twists and turns, some heroism, everything I loved to read about and everything I love to write about. So, you can image my surprise when I get a very lengthy comment on the story ripping it apart line by line.

Thinking back on it now it actually wasn't that bad. The guy pretty much pointed out all the logical holes I had created, things that wouldn't be possible with so many people leaving the city. He asked good questions, how did they feed these people? How did they organize them? How did they all go to the bathroom, stuff that I really should have asked myself before writing the scene. But, at that time, 20 years or so ago when I wrote it, I was angry thinking that I didn't need to answer those kinds of questions, it was the story that was important, it was the heroes, that characters, the invasion, who cares what they ate or slept or peed. That wasn't the point!

Of course he was right, I need to ask myself questions before writing a technical scene like that. I need to figure out how to solve those kinds of problems and, since I write science fiction I can make magical solutions to the problems using science! Of course my science needs to be vaguely plausible and normally, I'm okay with that. A strange concept now could be common place in the future, I just need to nudge it in the direction of 'yeah, it could happen.'

I think I got pretty good at that. Wormholes can't open so I have to figure out a way to make it open. Okay, I saw a show on the Science Channel about Particle Accelerators and how they could accidently create Strangelets, an exotic particle that turns all other particles around it into a strangelet and could open a wormhole. Cool, that's prefect! So, I use it for my Arwen stories and it works well in the stories. Do I need to explain how we fit a particle accelerator into a starship when most of them today are miles and miles in circumference? Nah, I figured the people who are listening or reading can figure out that in 300 years we could probably scale it down to starship size so I didn't worry about that.

So, I think things through pretty well, for the most part, when I'm writing stories like this. Sometimes I'll think about it for weeks before even starting the story. I normally feel pretty confident sitting down that I can at least BS my way through the technical stuff until the second or third drafts but I can't cover everything and every time I post a story I worry if someone is going to send me an e-mail detailing why my science is wrong and why I should never write another science fiction story ever again.

I worry about that but it has never happened. When someone does comment on something I screwed up I take it in stride and move on. Heck, once it's out there it's really hard to bring it back so I just have to let the moment of stupidity hang there for everyone to see and read. And, to be honest, most of the time they're right and it forces me to think harder the next time I write a story in which a Dyson Sphere is 17 AU's in diameter. How will that affect, well, everything from its gravity signature to how close you need to be before you crash into it, how do the inhabitance live in it, stuff like that.

I love fantastic ideas and I love fantastic ideas in Science Fiction and, even if they don't make total sense when you really think about them, there really is a power to the imagination.

Incident On Rygel IX

Just another, old, short story I thought I'd share.

Incident On Rygel IX

By Timothy Callahan

 

    I can't believe I saved the world, and this is the thanks I get? Major John Rammos thought as he stood in line at the supermarket. A line he'd been standing in for the last 45 minutes. A line he got into because he thought it'd move faster than all the other lines. A line that was supposed to be the express line.

    "Register three open!" He heard and looked. He saw the light above the register turn on and like moths the group of people behind him rushed over to the light, and the newly opened register.

    Anger quickly built up inside of the Major and he took a deep, calming breath. I should be the first one in that line, those people behind me weren't in line nearly as long as I was, and now they'll get out before me!

    His line inched forward ever so slowly, while the line next to him seemed to zip along as if there was some sort of super-checker at the register. He was tempted to move to the other line when he realized that he was next after a rather large, burly woman.

    The burly woman in front of him searched her pocket book. "I'm sorry, I know that I had the cash. Do you take checks?"

    Rammos sighed.

    She turned to him, "do you have a problem?"

    Deep breath, Rammos thought. "No problem at all. You just write that check for a dollar thirty three, go ahead, I'm in no hurry."

    "Good." She turned back to the cashier.

    Rammos followed her gaze to the cashier. This was the reason he saved the world, for beautiful woman such as her.

    She had blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her face, young and full, held two of the brownest eyes Rammos had ever seen. The store uniform she wore did little to hide the athletic body underneath. Her nametag read Cassandra. Major Rammos wished he were 50 year younger just so he stood a chance at such a lovely vision of a woman.

    Yeah, he thought. What would my pick up line be? "Hey baby, did you know that I saved the world?"

    "Oh really?" He imagined her reply.

    "Yup, it was on this little back water world called Rygel IX."

    "Please, tell me more!" In his mind he saw her big, brown eyes fixated on him with undeterred attention.

    "Oh, it was nothing. You see, the Rygel's, this worm like race, wanted to destroy the Earth with this massive ray, well me and my company stormed the base, took out the leader, and destroyed the ray. It was nothing really, I mean, all in a days work for the IA."

    "The IA? What's that handsome? Oh, and I want to sleep with you once you tell me."

    "Oh, you will after I tell you. The Intergalactic Army, very top secret, very hush, hush. In fact, just telling you this will mean I'll have to kill you, after we make love of course."

    "Oh, of course, I'm sure that after we make love I will never be able to fulfill myself again, so death is the only option anyway."

    "Sir?" The brown eyes woman said, "Sir, you're next."

    Not realizing that he was daydreaming so hard, Rammos blinked twice. "Oh, sorry." He said and put his groceries on the conveyer belt.

    He watched as she scanned each item. He was sure he looked like an old fool, standing there not moving when the rude woman in front of him had left.

    "Oh shoot." She said.

    "What?" He asked, looking at her confused face.

    "The system just went down again, it's been doing that all afternoon. It'll take a few moments for it to come back up."

    "Oh, okay." He replied and stood there, trying not to stare at the girl. The imaginary conversation he had with her ran through his head again. A wry smile formed on his lips and he thought, what the hell. "Say, did you know that I saved the world?"

    With a smile she replied, "oh really, How did you do that?"

    "You see it was on this little planet called Rygel IX, probably never heard of it before, huh?"

    Her smile broadened, "no, can't say that I did."

"Oh yeah, it's near the crab nebula. You see, they had this weapon of mass destruction and they wanted to use it on Earth, they wanted to destroy us."

"Why would they want to do that?"

"They were assholes." He replied.

    From behind him he heard laughter, the people in line were listening in on his conversation. Cassandra giggled. "Is that it?"

    "I'm sure there were other reasons, but that's the one I like to go with. Anyway, my company, we stormed the main base. Oh, it was a massive fire fight, see, I got this scar," he rolled up his sleeve to revile a small scar on his upper arm, "during the fight. We took out at least 200 of them before we could enter the base. Once we did we met even stiffer resistance."

    "My goodness, it's a good thing you weren't killed."

    "Oh, they tried, but in the end, we made it to the gun. Just me and Jack."

    "What happen to everyone else?"

    "Sadly, they were killed." Maybe he put too much emotion in his voice, maybe his eyes just dropped a little too far because the reaction he got from this girl wasn't one he was expecting, she stopped smiling and looked sad. "Anyway, so Jack and I, after killing the Rygel's in the room, went to work on the ray. I mean, we shot the crap out of it, blew it to bits! There by saving the world!"

    Cassandra, once again smiling, clapped. "Thank you sir, I'm glad we have people like you saving us from alien destructors."

    "For a pretty thing like you, it's worth it."

    "Thanks." She shyly replied as her register came back to life. "Your order is up, that'll be 15.98."

    He gave her the money and after getting the change grabbed his stuff to leave. The girl touched his arm, "that story isn't true, is it?" She whispered.

    "No," he whispered back, "just the ramblings of an old man with too much time on his hands."

    She nodded, took her arm off his, and said, "thanks anyway, you know, just in case."

    "You're welcome, you know, just is case." He winked, and then left the supermarket.

Captain Powerman saves the world! (Sort of)

Ever get an idea for a story you just couldn't get out of your head? This was one of those stories, I played it over and over in my head for about a week before finally writing it down. I think it's amussing to read it again and I'm not afraid to admit I laughed at some of my own silly jokes.

 

 

Captain Powerman saves the world. (Sort of)

By Timothy Callahan

Doctor Victory Hellbent should have known better than to think encasing me in a block of solid diamond would stop my crusade to rid the world of his evil. I had no idea how long I was trapped in the diamond, which Hellbent sent to the bottom of Mount Kilauea, but when I finally broke out I saw he had accomplished his goal: He had managed to become ruler of the world.

I saw the first sign of this as I flew passed Mount Rushmore, my cape billowing behind me in the cool South Dakota air, to see all four faces had been replaced by his ugly mug. Rimmed glasses, slick hair, evil eyes that penetrated the souls of anyone unlucky enough to look at them for more than a few seconds, stared back at me as I hover in dismay.

I made it my mission to find Hellbent and defeat him. I knew his ego was larger than Earth and all the planets combined so finding him would be easy. Taking him down would be hard.

I discovered very easily the egomaniac built his base of operation on top of Mount Everest and enclosed it in a pressured bubble that would be nearly impossible to penetrate. If not for my heat vision I would not have been able to burn a hole in the force field.

I landed on the rocky surface of the mountain and walked up to the 50 foot golden door. The manic had decorated the door with platinum and diamond images of himself. I pushed and it slowly creaked opened.

The hallway, lined with portraits of Hellbent, ended at yet another large gold door. The space between seemed too empty. Surely he knew I would not fall for the same trap that befell me the last time I took a tentative first step into the room.

Nothing happened.

I took another step and looked around. The walls seemed to move. I flinched. A thousand evil eyes watch me from behind rimmed glassed. I saw holes in the wall, the laser guns dormant within. What kind of fiendish game was Hellbent playing?

I made it to the door without incident. I needed to be ready for anything. I tensed up and pushed with all my might. The doors flew off their hinges. I stood in the doorway of Doctor Hellbent's lair. The room was a tribute to all his evil. He was so in love with his own mug he had statues and sculptures of himself in every corner of the room. I saw him sitting behind a large oak desk. Behind him a wall sized mural showcasing all his triumphs while on Earth. Right in the middle was an image of him in his inpenitrable armor throwing my diamond encased body into the pit fire that will become my hell for years.

I lunge toward him. What kind of weapon is he holding in his hand? To my eyes it looks like a cell telephone. It must be some sort of weapon and I must act without haste.

Doctor Hellbent held his hand up, stopping me in my tracks. "Could you give me a minute?" He asked politly.

"Put that weapon down Doctor Hellbent and-"

"Shhh, please. This is important."

"Not more important than-"

He placed his finger in his ear. What kind of plot is this? He spoke in a voice I wasn't used to hearing, weakened and tired. "Yes. . . Look. . . Okay. Look, look, look. Will you shut up and listen to me? Okay, fine. You listening? Good. Now, stop talking and tell me what's going on. Uh huh. Uh huh. They do know that I could obliterate the city at any time, right? Oh, they do and they don't care. Well, they better start caring because I'm not afraid to use my orbiting death ray to- What do you mean they'll think it an honor? The people of Seattle didn't think it was an honor when I blasted that city to dust now did they? I know, I know, Seattle is different from Tokyo but I don't think the Japanese will want their capital city destroyed. Look, okay, shut up again okay? You're one of my minion, you handle it. If you need me to destroy the city I will, but I don't want to so you deal with it or I'll have your head, understand? Good."

I tried to fathom what he's planning. The look he is giving me is confusing. It was a look of. . . relief?

"Oh, Captain Powerman I am so happy to see you!" He walked over and gave me a hug. An actual, no strings attached, hug.

"What game are you planning Hellbent?"

"Game!" He seemed surprised and quickly ended the hug. "Oh no, no game. I'll be honest with you Kenneth, I don't know what I was thinking."

"Kenneth! You know my real name?"

"Of course I do, everyone does. I mean, it wasn't hard to figure out. Captain Powerman disappears, Kenneth Carlson goes missing. I'm really kind of surprised that no one figured it out sooner. Still, being a mild mannered store clerk in downtown Boston was a pretty good cover."

"It doesn't make a difference; I'm taking you down Hellbent!"

"Oh, please do!" He leaned against his desk and sighed. "I used to think that taking over the world would be a good thing. But, you know? It's not! It's a lot of hard work. Ever since I managed to get all the governments to give me power it's been nothing but stop a border war here, break up a riot there, make sure this economy doesn't collapse. I haven't even had the time to finish my time machine, that irony did not escape me, or work on my moon base. I'm telling you Ken, if you want the Earth back you can have it."

"This has to be some sort of trick."

"I told you, it's no trick. I want to give you the Earth back. I want to get off this silly planet and live the rest of my life on the moon."

"No way Hellbent! You need to be brought to justice for what you did."

"I didn't really do anything that bad, did I?"

"You melted Iceland!"

"Yes, yes I did, but by doing so I created millions of miles of brand new beach front property."

"You sank Australia!"

"Oh come on, who's going to miss Australia with their 'G'day mates', and 'let's throw some shrimp on the barby."

Of all the evil he did, what he did next hurt me more than anything else. My voice got low, deep, angry. "You stole Martha away from me."

"And you should thank me! Keeping that woman safe was a full time job with her falling off buildings, being pushed out of planes and just getting herself into trouble at ever turn. I finally had to just put her in a block of ice to keep her safe."

"You killed her?"

"Oh no, no, no. I needed her to keep you at bay should you return. And, now you have returnd so I'm going to pull the Martha card. If you let me go I'll tell you where she's at and you can do whatever it is you do with her. I told you Kenny, I want out."

I was still skeptical. "I still don't believe you Hellbent."

"Kenneth, I can appreciate your concern. Heck, if I were in your shoes I'd be thinking the same thing." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a credit card sized black box. He tossed the object at me and I caught it. On the top was four buttons, each a different color and shape.

"What is this?"

"My backup plan. Okay, the red one will release a computer virus that will wipe out all the information in every computer bank in the world. The green button will open a dimensional hole that will unleash a horde of demons whose only goal is to wipe out humanity, the blue button will detonate a large nuclear bomb which I planted in the Earth's core."

"What's the black one for?"

"That's my car alarm."

He wasn't joking. He really wanted to call it quits and he was giving me the choice if I wanted that or not. "If I let you go what promise do I have that you won't come back and cause havoc again?"

He placed his hands over his heart and did a fake gasp. "Captain Powerman, I'm surprised. I might be evil but I've always kept my word haven't I? I promised that you would pay for interfering with my plans and you did. I promised that if I was ever defied that I would destroy a city of my choice, sink a continent and melt Iceland and I did. You can say whatever you want about me but you can't say that I'm not a man of my word."

"And you give me your word?"

"Oh yes, I'll even write it down if you want." He took a piece of paper from his desk and started to write, "I, Doctor Victor Hellbent, do promise and swear that I shall never return to Earth to cause any more harm to anyone."

He handed me the paper and I looked it over. I had an urge to notarize it. It seemed like he wasn't kidding. He did have the world in his hands and now he wanted to give that up. If I fight him this cycle of destruction will start again. The moon would be the best place for a man like this. He can do what he wanted and not interfere with my life again. "So," I finally say, "what do we do now?"

"I just leave! I have a rocket that will take me to the moon. I'll keep my computer turned on and powered up so you can find all the hidden traps and secret plans that I have on it. You might want to get some help with that though; I have more than one nuclear bomb hidden so you might want to get as many of those as you can. Oh, and don't forget to destroy the orbital laser array and the heat mirror over the North Pole."

"That's it then? I just let you go? What will I tell everyone?"

"Tell them you killed me. Upstairs you'll find my small army of robots built in my image, just take one of those to use as a body if you want. I won't need them where I'm going."

"Well, then, okay. What now?"

Hellbent stood up and walked behind his desk. He pressed a button under the desk, waved at me, and then fell through the floor.

A few moments later I heard the rumble of a rocket. I ran to a window and looked up. A small smoke trail followed behind a tiny sphere which slowly disappeared into the night sky.

As I watched it I realized that, on some level, I was going to miss Doctor Hellbent. Maybe I'll pay him a visit one day to see how things are going.

Bored Starship Captain

Something I wrote for my Skit writing class, this was the one I decided to work on for the final assigment. Enjoy!

 

 

 

INT-INside a star trek type starship bridge

We see CAPTIN SMITH sitting in a Captain chair. Around him sits the bridge crew, WESLEY JOHNSON, APRIL SANDERS, and LEROY NATUR. Leroy is standing behind the Captain looked down at a report, he has a very happy smile on his face.

Captain smith

Captain's log stardate. . .well who the hell cares what the date is, I'm booooooord! We've seen nothing. We've done nothing. Our enemies are probably laughing at us right now saying, "ha, ha, ha, we have them on a wild goose chase." I mean, come on, we need something exciting to happen soon or else I'm going to explode!

Leroy walks up to the Captain and hands him a clipboard.

Leroy

Here you go Captain, just some paperwork for you to sign here, and here, and here, and here, and flip the page and sign here, and finally here.

Leroy hands the Captain his clipboard and points to several pages and locations where the Captain needs to sign. Captain Smith gives Leroy the clipboard back.

LEroy

Ahhhhh, is there anything more satisfying than filling out a standard A-8890 form with perfect precision?

Captain Smith and the others simply roll their eyes at the comment.

leroy

Come on guys, aren't you with me on this? You fill out forms all the time.

Captain smith

We fill out forms because you make us. I'm the Captain for Christ's sake and you hover over me for hours giving me forms to fill out or sign or send or whatever.

 

The rest of the crew nod in agreement and mutter to themselves about how bored they are.

leory

Come on guys, that's not the attitude to have. This is great! I mean, I wouldn't mind filling out an action report but no action can be just as much fun as lots and lots of action.

April

No, that's where you're wrong, this is boring. I'm so bored I've resorted to sleeping with Wesley just so I have something to do at night.

WESLEY

Hey!

April

No offense.

WESLEY

(In a dejected voice)

I thought it was nice.

april

If it makes you feel any better it's normally the best part of my night, you know, if Sex and the planet isn't on.

leroy

Oh, I didn't know you two were an item.

 

Wesley

(Depressed beyond remorse)

I don't even know if we are.

Leroy

Well, in any case I'll be sure to forward some relationship forms for you to fill out tonight. I'll be expecting them in the morning.

April

Captain! I'm picking something up on the scanners!

Everyone, except for Leroy who starts shuffling through some papers on his console, runs over to April.

Captain smith

What is it? What is it?

Leroy

Captain, you'll need to fill out form C-434 if it's an enemy ship, R-444 if it's something else.

April

Oh, it's just an asteroid. Sorry, nothing exciting.

Everyone meanders back to their stations disappointed. Leroy hands a form over to the Captain who starts to fill it out.

Captain Smith

You know, I don't know why I can't do this electronically, I mean we have all these computers and this technology.

When he's done he hands it back to Leroy. Leroy walks over to a filing cabinet and methodically places the form inside another folder.

Leroy

I know we can do this electronically but there's something to be said about the smell of freshly inked carbon paper.

april

(Very excited)

Captain, someone's hailing us!

Captain Smith

Really? Who?

Everyone runs over to April's station, except for Leroy who grabs a set of papers and places them on the Captain's chair.

leroy

All hails must be followed by filling out form F-3311!

Captain smith

Greeting ship who is hailing us. How can we help you?

Alien ship

Just wanted to say hi, that's all.

Captain smith

Oh, well, um. Hi. You sure there's nothing we can do? I mean, are your engines faulty, do you need any repairs?

Alien ship

Nope, just saw you in the sector, thought I'd say hi. Did you know there's like, nothing going on here?

Captain smith

I know!

The rest of the crew nod their heads in agreement.

Alien ship

Do you know of anything to do?

Captain smith

No. We've resorted to sleeping with people from our own ship to stave the boredom

WESLEY

I don't think that's such a bad idea you know.

Alien ship

Oh, ouch. That bad huh? How long have you been in this sector?

Captain smith

A few months now, we're kind of stuck here.

Alien ship

Geez, I'm really sorry to hear that. So, um, do you want to, I don't know, do something?

Captain Smith

Do you really mean it?

Aliens ship

Yeah, I mean, I guess so. Not much else going on right? Do you have phasers or something?

Captain Smtih

Well yeah, of course! Do you want use to fire at you, or something?

Alien ship

Sure, I mean, if you want.

    Captain smith

Yeah, sure.

Leroy

Um, Captain, you can't do that.

Captain Smith

What? Why?

Leroy

We don't have form for that.

Captain smith

We don't have a form for firing out phasers? Of course we do, I used to do it all the time!

Leroy

No, we don't have a form for firing a phaser just for fun.

Alien ship

So, are we going to do this or not?

Captain Smith

No, we can't. Mister Form over there won't let us.

Alien ship

Aren't you the Captain?

Captain Smith.

I sometimes wonder.

Alien ship

Well, look if we're not going to do this I think I'll just go.

Captain smith

No, don't go, we can. . . um, chase each other the asteroid belt or something.

Leroy

No, you can't, not without permission from home base and defined threat, plus form R-1223

Alien ship

Yeah, I think we're going to go now.

Captain smith

Do you really need to go? I mean, can't we just hang or something? It would mean a lot to us.

Alien ship

Well, maybe some other time. Good luck with that whole sleeping with each other thing.

Wesley

Thanks!

April

They just warped out, we're all alone again.

The entire crew sighs and slowly walk back to their stations. The Captain sees the paperwork on his chair, grabs it and fills it out while Leroy hovers over him, waiting anxiously for it. He takes it and walks over to the filing cabinet, whistling a happy tune as he files it away.

leroy

Okay guys, we all need to fill out a report on that encounter so-

He walks over to everyone's consol and gives them all some papers to fill out.

Captain smith

Does anyone have anything we can do besides filling out form?

 

Wesely

Well, I have a hologram of me and April from the other night.

 

APril

Hey!

 

Captain smith

All right, now we're talking! Come on, let's go check it out!

The two walk to the door and are quickly stopped by Leroy holding a clipboard.

leroy

Don't forget to sign out!

The two sign out and leave.

April

I can't believe he'd show the Captain that. Ah, who I'm kidding.

She stands, walks over to Leroy and signs the sign-out sheet.

April

Hey guys, wait up!

Alone, Leroy walks up to the Captain's chair and sits down. He plays with the controls for a few seconds then reaches over to grab another clipboard. He looks at a light in front of him that's blinking. He presses it.

Leroy

Hello?

Alien ship

Hey, it's us again.

Leroy

Oh, well hi, how can I help you?

alien ship

Uh, well, we got to thinking and we kind of felt bad for leaving you so, we thought we'd come back.

leroy

Well, thanks. The rest of the crew left.

alien ship

Hey, that's cool. Maybe we can, you know, do something.

leroy

Give me some time, I can fill out a report on-

alien ship

You don't need a report, do you? Can't you just like, come over or something?

leroy

Don't you guys like paperwork?

alien ship

Naw, we don't believe in paperwork.

Leroy

Oh, that's interesting. Can you give me a few seconds?

alien ship

Sure, take your time.

Leroy works on the controls for a few seconds.

alien ship

Are you shooting at us?!

Leroy

Sorry, can't be around aliens who don't believe in paperwork. It could set a bad precedent for the federation.

alien ship

But! But! AHHHHH!!!

leroy

Well, looks like I've got a lot of paperwork to fill out now.

(giddy voice)

Oh goody!!

The Arwen IV is on its way

I finished recording the last episode about a week ago. I decided to let it sit for a few days before getting it ready to post, mostly because I know myself too well and there is always one thing I miss when I'm in a hurry so, I waited. Then, on Sunday I sent the details to Evo at Podiobooks and now we have a release date! Aug 30^th! Just to to www.podiobooks.com on that day and you'll be able to subscribe. But, if you want get caught up just download the first three Arwen stories (http://www.podiobooks.com/title/the-arwen/, http://www.podiobooks.com/title/arwen-2/, http://www.podiobooks.com/title/arwen-3/) I don't think you'll regret it!

Actually the limited success I've had with my Arwen stories has surprised me. My first Podiobook, Ida (http://www.podiobooks.com/title/ida/) did well and I was happy enough that I pulled out my favorite story, The Arwen, and decided to expand it from a short story to a Novella and podcast it. Once again I was happy with how well it was doing then, much to my shock and surprised, it won the 2007 Parsec award for Best Novella. I remember sitting in a hotel, cause I was on a business trip, checked the winners for about three days wondering if I had won then, when I logged in one morning, I saw that I had, indeed, won! I was thrilled, mostly because the subscription numbers jumped to a point where the Arwen was in the Top Ten for a good month before finally moving out of it. Then, the comments and e-mails started to roll in and I was very, very happy.

So, hopefully this podiobook will have some of the same success as the first series did. It's a brand new adventure that will build off the last series but I also tried to write it so that you didn't need to listen to the old series to understand the characters and what was going on. Hopefully I did that but if I didn't I'm sure I'll be hearing it in the comments.

 

 

 

Creative choices

Writing is lonely. You need to write in a vacuum, you need to trust your own instincts and trust that what your brain is telling you is the right choice for your story. But, what if you're mind is trying to fool you into thinking that writing choice you've made is the correct one? Or, what if it is and someone else tells you something different and you go with that or, what if you just come up with some really bad ideas and there's no one around to tell you it's a bad idea or, they're all yes men who tell you your crap doesn't smell.

I think of this as I write, I also think of this as I watch movies or read books. I wonder why the writer made certain choices with the film or story. I will read or see something peculiar and think, "Why did they go that way?" or, "wasn't there someone in charge who told this person this was a horrible idea?"

The most recent example of this came from the movie The Watchmen. I really did love the movie, thought it was almost perfect except for maybe a few things. The one creative choice I couldn't understand was the use of music which seemed to distract from the scenes instead of enhancing them.

The scene that really sticks out in my mind was the first appearance of Doctor Manhattan during the Vietnam war. He was about fifty feet tall walking across a field killing all the enemies and, while they were showing this they were playing "Ride of the Valkyries" which, while a really cool song, didn't seem to fit the scene and I thought it was a bad song choice.

Another example from the movie was them playing "Purple Haze" when pulling back from the bad guy's lair (non-spoiler alert, not going to tell you who the bad guy is!) again, it seemed odd to me and just distracted from the scene. I wondered if anyone stopped for a moment to say, "maybe this isn't a good choice" or if they just went with it.

I think probably the biggest mistake ever made in a movie, book, or tv show, took place over the summer of 1999. We all waited in grand anticipation for the release of Star Wars: The Phantom menace. I could probably write an entire entry on bad choices that were made during the second trilogy but I think I'll just focus on the one that most people agree was simply a bad, bad idea. Midi-chlorians. (Bet you thought I was going to say Jar Jar Binks, didn't you?) I mean. . .what the heck was George Lucas thinking!? At what point did he wake up and say, "Hey, you know, this whole Force thing needs to be explained on a biological level." Maybe it was just the creator over thinking something. Maybe it was something that had bothered him for years, the inability to explain the force, and he needed to do that to clear his own mind, or maybe it was just a really horrible idea. Whatever the case I wished someone had just stopped him and said, "George, you can't explain the force, it's just there and people have accepted that so why can't you?" But, no one did (or they did and he ignored them.) and there you go, we now have Midi-chlorians in the Star Wars universe.

I sometimes wish I had a staff of twenty to tell me if I had a bad idea or not but I don't, I need to judge for myself if an idea I had is bad or not and I always struggle with trying to filter them out in my own writing. I don't want someone to read or listen to my work and say, "well, that's just stupid." Unless I've said it to myself a few dozen times. I can think of a more than one example of my own writing where I knew the idea was kind of out there but went with it anyway for either dramatic reasons or I just couldn't think of anything better or, in a few cases, because I just thought it was a neat idea.

In my novel Ida I had the main character hitch a ride on a comet as it made its way around the sun. I did this by having him and his crew construct a giant net which would wrap itself around the comet, his life pod would be attached to the end of the net and when the comet was caught it would carry him along for the ride. When I came up with the idea I knew it was kind of silly but I decided to see if I could pull it off. I did a lot of research and found that you know, it's not impossible so I did it. The creative reason for it was to get the hero away from the Space Station while all hell broke loose so he could return to become an even greater hero. I do sometimes wonder if I made the right choice there because a re-write would take an awful long time to complete.

In the Arwen Season III: Armada I wrote a scene that still sort of bothers me today. In it the Earth is about ready to be attacked by a large alien force. The Earth fleet was decimated in an early war and they needed the perfect plan to defeat the bad guys. In the story I had Vice Admiral Cook in charge of the defense of the Earth, he and he alone came up with the brilliant plan to save the planet. I knew, even as I writing it, that this was impossible. There would be no way that one man would be in charge of coming up with a plan to save a planet, it would be a committee of highly trained officers and they would spend weeks coming up with the perfect defense but, I didn't have the time nor did I feel like writing page after page of Generals, Admiral, Presidents, and anyone else who needed to be in the room talking about the best way to defend the planet. Not only would that have bored me to tears the reader and listener would have zoned out after a while wondering when the action was going to take place. So, I made a creative choose to have one man come up with the plan knowing someone might say something about it. So far this seems to bother no one other than me.

Right now I'm struggling with a choice I made in the sixth Arwen story. I'm dealing with a thinking computer and I can't decide if it's going to be completely sentient or not. The problem is the sentient computer who is trying to figure out how to act human is so old and has been done so many times I can't add anything new to it but, it's still a pretty cool idea that I'd like to explore in my own writing. I've decided that's the path I'm going down, that the computer is trying to figure out what it's like to be human, it'll make mistakes, it'll act on instinct, and in the climax it'll do something that it thinks is the right choice but in the end it could kill everyone. That's what I'm going with now but the more I think about it the more I wonder if it's a good idea. Again, wish I had a team of 20 to help me with this decision but, as it is, it's something I need to decide for myself.

Frank, the Clown accountant

Wrote this a while ago, I know that point I was trying to make now I'm wondering if anyone else can figure it out.  I don't think it's really all the subtle

Frank the accountant walked into work one day

wearing a clown suit.

Everyone laughed at him

in his clown suit and he wondered

“Why is everyone laughing at me?”

He spoke eloquently at all his meetings

creating plans that would save the company from bankruptcy.

But all anyone could see was the clown suit

and his ideas were ignored.

His frustration caused him great anger

but no one cared.

An angry clown is just as funny as a happy one

and who is going to listen to an angry clown anyway?

On his way home in his car people laughed at him

and wondered where all his other clown friends were.

Frank walked home to his wife.

who kissed him on his cheek.

She wiped off the smudge of white make up from her lips and asked

“how was your day?”

Frank told her about his day.

About how he could save the company if they listened.

How no one cared about his plans or his anger or his frustration.

He told her how he didn’t understand it.

He told her how he just felt like dressing like a clown this morning

and thought nothing of how he looked.

He told her how he was surprised when they all laughed

and asked him to make balloon animals.

“Why can’t they look past the clown suit?”  He asked,

“I’m still the same Frank I was before yesterday,

Now they don’t take me seriously!”  He exclaimed.

“Well dear,” she said in a calm motherly voice,

“If you dress like a clown people are going to treat you like a clown.”

Frank understood what his wife was saying and said:

“what if I want to dress as a clown again tomorrow?”

“Then you should expect to be treated the same way until you earn their respect.”

Frank nodded in agreement.

Frank the accounted walked into work the next day

dress as a clown

This time he didn’t mind the laughter.