Fascinating Distractions

Listening to Nickelcreek and trying to get some writing done before I have to go work. I need to leave in an hour and in that hour I need to make myself a lunch, take a shower, figure out what I'm going to wear and, if time permits, finish writing The Orion Trail's prologue. It's so hard to get work done nowadays. There's just so many fascinating distractions at my finger tips.

I wonder if writers of yore would have accomplished half their writings if they had the Internet? Would Shakespeare have finished Hamlet if he could watch stupid people do stupid things on YouTube? Would Wilde have written The Importance of Being Earnest if he could keep up with all of his friends, fans, and strangers on Facebook? Or perhaps the more interesting question would be, how would those works have been different if today's technology was available to ye olde writers?

I have this fear that if Facebook existed way back when, we wouldn't know the name of Oscar Wilde or CS Lewis or Orson Scott Card. And likewise, I fear that I may be the Aaron Sorkin That Never Was.

I come to my office with the best of intentions. "I am going to finish X today!" Let me check my e-mail, my Facebook, my Twitter and CNN real quick and then I'll get started . . . ooh, what's Neil Gaiman saying over on his blog . . . ooh, what theories on LOST are people postulating today . . . I wonder if Spider-Man has gotten better yet . . . four hours later . . . "Well, time to head off to work and/or bed!"

The solution to this, of course, absolutely terrifies me. I could buy a typewriter and seal myself off in Spare Oom. Far, far away from the Internet and her Siren call of Fascinating Distractions. "No!" My brain says, "no, don't be absurd. Discipline is the thing! Moderation!"

Now I have 45 minutes till I have to leave for work and I still need a shower and I still need to make lunch and I still have to figure out what I'm going to wear.

Guess the prologue is going to have to wait.

Whirlwinds & Dissonance

Is it really only Monday? How can that be?

I'm listening to Muse's The Resistance, an album Ryan highly recommended and I can see why. It plays like a soundtrack. There's so much to it, the songs have layers. I listen to it and see three or four different scenes playing out to each song and on top of that, each song inspires three or four different scenes and/or stories as well as conjuring up images from TV shows and movies that have already used the songs in their advertisements. It's good stuff. I'd recommend it. It's good writing, driving, relaxing and/or living music.

I've got this sci-fi I'm struggling with. It's tentatively titled The Orion Trail, but I'm nine-tenths sure that it won't stay that way. It's a little too punny. There is something, however, about being able to sum up a book's entire plot with three words. Because it is, after all, shaping up to be the Oregon Trail in space. The problem is, of course, that is just the setting. I'm not entirely sure what the story is, other than it leads directly into the book Oasis, which was the original idea until I realized I needed to explain how the kids got abandoned on that dust bowl of a planet. So now I'm telling the story of the kids' parents and I have a lot of disassociated ideas rattling around the ol' brain box, just nothing coherent yet.

Then there's the talking animals. I have this image -- or should I say, "I was struck with this image." I'm not sure where it came from or who they are or what it means, but I see a little girl, maybe ten or twelve years old. Red hair, braided pigtails. On one side of her is a frog. The frog is wearing a vest and is holding a rapier. On the other side of the girl is a grey rabbit. He also is wearing a vest, but his ears are pulled back and tied together (like a ponytail). On top of his head is a tri-corner hat and he's brandishing a flintlock pistol. I think his name's Ignatius Rabbit. I can only assume this trio is some sort of Talking Animal Freedom Fighting Force who live in a children's book of the future, but I can't say. I don't know their story yet. But they just showed up and are taking up space in the brain.

Meanwhile, Michael's turning in music for Remnants. It's beautiful. Music is something I absolutely love and absolutely do not understand. But he's put together this theme for the opening credits that sounds like a discordant fiddle. It sounds like the song used to be patriotic, but now it's just sad. It's eerie. Listen to the opening titles of John Adams, by Rob Lane. It sounds like that song's nightmare. It's perfect.

Blimey the 11th Doctor is going to be fun. I'm going to miss the 10th, but the 11th looks like he's going to be a lot of fun. And we loves Amelia.

Also, there's a voice in the back of my head saying I should take another pass at the runners' story. It could probably be tighter. Or different all together.