Fantasist’s Scroll

Titles come easily to me.

Maybe it has something to do with the way I was introduced to creative writing back in the Fifth Grade, but titles have always been easy for me. Our teacher used to put up titles on the board and we had to write stories that were based on that title. So, I often find myself starting with titles long before I have any real story. Sometimes, I just sit and toss out titles for projects I know I’ll never have the time, energy or motivation to produce, just because the titles can be fun.
Here are a few examples you can steal for your own work:

Carpet Bagger: The Adventures of a Damn Yankee in the Deep South
Flashbacks to a War I Never Fought: A Divorce Memoir
Amber Waves: American History seen through a bottle
Hack: A Writing Life
Hot Wired: Erotic Tales of Cyberspace
Dangerous Curves: A Scholastic Romance
The Wizard in Blue Jeans
The Man with a Limp

So, now you’ve got titles, what’s your excuse for not writing?

Well, as several of you have noticed, there seem to be some on-going issues with the conlang scripts.  After getting them working again post ISP move, their usage has spiked to a level that the new ISP/WebHost can’t seem to handle.  So, I’m working on it.

Unfortunately, I’m also a cancer patient who’s got to go into the hospital rather frequently for chemotherapy, so I don’t have a lot of time or energy to work on the problem.  I’m about a third of the way through my treatments, so you can expect me to work on this issue sometime before the end of the year, but I can’t make any guarantees as to when.
Sorry.

Oy!  I don’t have the energy to do two posts these days, so head over to Diary of a Network Geek and Meet Cletus!

Oh, boy, where to start.

Well, first, let me say that I probably just won’t be posting for a bit. My wife left me last week Sunday, right before Thanksgiving, and we’ll be getting a divorce. So, that’s going to be taking a lot of my time and energy, which will leave little left over for the blog.
Second, I’m afraid that I might say some things that are legally innapropriate considering my current marital situation, so, again, not a good idea to post anything for a bit.

Not sure how long it will take to get this resolved, but, when I do, I’ll start posting again.

Thank you for your support. If you’re the praying kind, keep me in your prayers.

I’d like to give this book a good review.

No, really, I would. When I picked it up, I had high hopes for a deeply moving spiritual experience. Unfortunately, I didn’t get it. Oh, it was a good reminder that I need to be more connected to the source of my spiritual strength, which is God. But, mostly, it was watered-down New Age mubo-jumbo.

It started out okay, though it wasn’t what I expected. It was, essentially, a work of fiction meant to impart nine “insights” of a spiritual nature. I hadn’t expected a story at all, but I plowed ahead anyway. Even though it was written at about the same level as USA Today. Then, they started to tell me that I needed to be a vegetarian. Uh-oh… I disagree with that for a number of reasons, which I won’t go into here. Suffice it to say that was my first warning that this wasn’t my kind of book. But, I reminded myself of all the Hindu and Buddhist vegetarians and kept reading.
Then, they started seeing auras. Oh, they called it “energy fields”, but it was nothing more than auras. That’s not bad in and of itself, but it added a bit of hokey-ness to the whole thing that was hard to get past later.
And, from there on out, everyone was a characature of a stereotype found in pop-psychology or New Age literature. Not that it’s all that bad, but it didn’t endear the book’s author to me. And, ultimately, it all got in the way of my reading. It’s never a good sign when the medium obstructs the message.

Still, it wasn’t a total loss. I did gain a deeper appreciation for better books! And, it made me think about what “coincidenes” really mean. Are they just interesting accidents? Or, are they messages from a higher source? So, I vowed to pay closer attention to chance encounters and such.
Also, it made me think more about how we interact with each other. How most of us are not conscious of the way we talk to and treat others. I know that I have not always been very conscious of how I deal with others. So, I promised myself that I would pay more attention to my interactions with other people.

So, while I can’t honestly reccomend this book to anyone else, it wasn’t a total loss. Oh, and normally, I’d post this on a Sunday, since it was a book about spirituality, but I’m announcing a new site feature tomorrow. And, the next two Sundays as well. Stay tuned!

And, living batteries are born.

I love new power-related technology. Especially when it all turns back to the original power source: life. So, these two stories, one on USA Today and the other on SpaceDaily, about batteries that are powered by bacteria, just tickle me. The idea of germs, basically, keeping us in energy. Of course, some of you will make the extension to the Matrix, but that’s your hang-up, man.

Enjoy the stories.